Charlotte's Web
by Lexikal
Summary: Red John didn't kill Jane's daughter, Charlotte. Jane just thought he did. In reality, he took her. Raised her. And now... she is back. And there will be hell to pay. T for violence and language (some chapters are more M). Some will obviously consider this AU, although it could work in the established canon if you wanted it to. Please review.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Charlotte's Web by Lexikal  
**Rating:** M for graphic violence and language  
**Fandom:** The Mentalist  
**Summary:** Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.

**Author's Note:** I am not a fan of "The Mentalist". It's not that I don't "like" the show, but rather, I am just not a huge TV watcher anymore. My sister, however, is a _huge_ fan of the show and commissioned this piece through the magic of incessant whining and promises of crisp 5 dollar bills for each (5,000+ word) chapter. If you guys knew how horrible I was at budgeting money, it would make perfect sense. I have attempted to do my homework, and hopefully I will write something that real Mentalist fans will want to read. Please leave comments, reviews, compliments, death threats, whatever you feel like and I may or may not read them. ;) Jane is a very complicated character and I actually admire the writers of the show for creating such a multi-faceted, intriguing and contradictory person. However, I think he may be hard to write. I will try, however. Reviews and feedback are much appreciated. I think I am a slight masochist as I already know this one is going to be 100,000+ words. But I don't think I can make it any shorter, and stay true to the embryonic vision in my head. I still have to finish two CM novels, too. Apparently the exact day Charlotte Anne Jane and Angela Ruskin-Jane were killed is not known to the fans. RJ strikes me as a very theatrical sort of devil, though, so I am making the date of their murders Devil's Night 2003 (AKA "Hell Night") which is the day before Halloween. In other words, their murder date in this story is Thursday, October 30th, 2003 at 3:33 a.m. (known as the devil's hour) and I will be taking some liberties with Jane's early character. If you have read anything else I write you probably know that my novels contain a fair amount of research, and this one will be no different in that respect. If you want to give yourself chills, google "devil's hour" and "3:33 a.m" and scan the headings. I think you'll figure out the relevance between RJ's obsession with theatrics and that time. Also, when I write about specific objects I generally research the objects and buildings and make sure they exist in the "real world" and then find photographs of them from different angles. (Yeah. Sort of OCD. _Can you people imagine if I was a serial killer? Muahahahaha!) _For instance, Jane's bike mentioned in the first part of this chapter can be seen here: bikecatalogs dot org/SCHWINN/MODELS/Bantam dot html (turn the "dots" into periods, obviously)

When I research like this, I begin to believe my stories are real. Hopefully you will too. You might also have fun looking up random places in this story to see if they are "real" (hint, hint).

**And now, on with the story... *takes a sip of tea and smiles pleasantly*...**

* * *

_"American eyes, American eyes; view the world through American eyes. Bury the past. Rob us blind. And leave nothin' behind."- "No Shelter" by Rage Against the Machine_

"There ain't no rest for the wicked,  
Money don't grow on trees.  
I got bills to pay,  
I got mouths to feed,  
There ain't nothing in this world for free.  
I know I can't slow down,  
I can't hold back,  
Though you know, I wish I could.  
No there ain't no rest for the wicked,  
Until we close our eyes for good". - "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" by Cage the Elephant

"Soon this space will be too small  
All my veins and bones  
Will be burned to dust  
You can throw me into a black iron pot  
And my dust will tell  
What my flesh would not..."

-"Soon this space will be too small" by Lhasa de Sela

_"Illusion is the first of all pleasures." -Oscar Wilde_

* * *

**Wednesday, October 29th, 2003 9:45 Pacific Standard Time, Para****dise Cove Beach Cafe**

He realizes he should phone home around 9 p.m., brandy in his veins, a smile stretched over his lips like a clown's rictus and the entire world is a little fuzzy and too colorful, but that's okay. He is excited and feels like he did at ten, when he got that awesome cherry red 1980 Schwinn Bantam after seven months of pining and dropping hints and doing double duty as a magician's assistant in the "lock box".

"Patrick, another brandy?" It is someone he has only known for 5 hours, a television executive in his mid twenties named Dylan Stewart. This Dylan is a real piece of work. Teeth bleached so white they almost gleam neon blue, hair combed and slicked like an eye-tal-ee-un mobster from the 30s, two piece suit and a god awful ugly tie that probably cost waaay too much and gold and canary diamond rotar cufflinks. Ugly things. Obviously a newbie to both fame and money. Obviously doesn't know how to buy clothes that don't reek of sycophantic desperation. Patrick grins back.

"I have another brandy and I won't be able to drive home, Dylan." This is croaked out. The young TV executive stares at him, not sure if he is joking or not and Patrick Jane merely smiles back blindly. _Always keep them guessing, Patty, always keep 'em guessing!_

"Don't worry about that, Pat. We'll have someone drive you home."

Jane considers this. Drains the dregs of his brandy. "I guess it's not every day I get a television deal, is it?"

"No. I'd say this is a _very _big deal." Dylan is giving him a shit-eating suck up grin. Jane would like the kid more if he wasn't such an obvious kiss-ass.

"I better call the missus." Patrick says congenially. "I usually phone if I plan to get absolutely shit-faced on a school night."

Dylan Stewart just stares, looking a bit frozen. He isn't sure if he should laugh or agree in a serious, grown-up "oh-I-know-exactly-what-you're-talking-about" way. Jane waits a beat and leans in for the kill, and says, a bit too smugly. "I'm joking. She doesn't try to come between me and the bottle anymore." Then he wanders off to the veranda to make the cell call leaving the little executive staring at him uneasily. If Angela were here, she would swat him lightly on the arm and tell him to leave the kid alone. Something like that. _Angela._ She is going to freak out when he tells her the news.

He can smell the ocean on the wind. The night sky is almost dark but still a pungent gun-metal blue, spackled with the first baby stars of the evening. The ocean is navy and black, with glinting shards of white and cerulean reflecting the moon's light. Or, rather, reflecting the reflection of light from the moon. Jane has always been fascinated with the moon. It reflects so much light, it influences the tides, but it is really just a hunk of space rock with nothing on it. So little, and yet so, so much. The day he was presented with the TV show idea was a mere 19 days ago, on the tenth. The same day he'd been on the talk show and discussed Red John. Not two hours after it finished taping (it would not air for another week) he'd gotten the phone call, the pitch. 1.2 million a year to do a show every week for an hour (worked out to about 48 minutes of actual air time with the commercials). He'd go on TV and have a talk show, his very own talk show and make assessments about different crimes. Make predictions. When would the Baylor Butcher kill his next victim, what could Jane predict about that crazy clocktower sniper from Texas, that sort of stuff. In between he'd talk to audience members and dazzle them with his abilities to talk to their deceased relatives.

Jane had asked about pets. He'd very much like to connect people to their dead pets. The guy trying to lasso him into a TV contract was silent and then began to babble. _Yeah, yeah sure. Scruffy the pug sends his love from puppy dog Heaven. Is having a great time and his kidneys don't hurt anymore. No problem. They could work pets into the show. No problem._ Jane, phone pressed to his ear, smiled broadly at the babbling enthusiasm.

"Do you believe in me?" He asked the slightly manic voice on the line. A pause. The guy didn't know what he was talking about, so Jane clarified his question.

"Do you believe I can actually speak to the dead? Read into the minds of killers? Do you believe I am a psychic?"

There'd been a quick little intake of breath, some nervous guffaws. _It doesn't matter what I believe, Mr. Jane, but honestly, dude to dude, I really do. I believe in you 1000% percent. And I know others do, too. And I know this show is going to be a hit and..._

"Don't you want to know for sure if I am psychic? Before you sign a contract with me?" He'd known he was screwing around and should just jump at the offer. 1.2 mill a year for doing basically jack shit every day except for one day a week. The rest of the time walking on the beach with Angela, playing with Charlie, ordering in food. Whatever he wanted.

"Excuse me?"

"I can tell you about yourself," Jane had pressed. "I can tell you about those close to you. Those who have passed... over to the other side."

More nervous laughter. This guy hadn't been expecting this, hadn't expected Jane to try and make a personal connection with him. Probably wasn't used to personal connections or to anyone expressing an interest in him as a human being, and not a contact number.

"Uh... sure. Sure, why not." But his voice faltered. He'd been nervous. Jane smiled and told the man about his life. His dog... Rusty... Randy? Yup, Rusty, who had died when he was "about 11" after being hit by a car. His mother. Bless her sweet soul. 5...no...no... 6 years this past May. Ovarian cancer. She wanted him to know she was safe. She was with her brother.

The voice on the phone had been amazed. Simply amazed. Had croaked out "H-how did you know that?"

"I thought you believed in me 1000%?"

"I...I..."

"And I know 1.2 is not your final offer. Nowhere near your final offer, actually. 1.5 and I will consider it. Let's put 1.5 on the table, shall we?"

"I...Mister Jane... I am just the messenger, here..."

"Bob. I can call you Bob, right?" The man's name was Robert Harrison. "Just tell your boss I want 1.5 mill or I will consider other networks. I have gotten other offers." He hadn't but he'd always been like this, since he was a kid. You never accepted the first deal, and you always showed off. You made people want you. You made them damn well _love_ you. It wasn't about the money, or the fame, or the prestige. Those were all ancillary benefits. No, you did what you did because that was how you kept the magic alive and evolved out of yourself. Anything less than suave talking and charming smiles and sleights-of-hand and all you were was an automaton doing grunt work.

And Patrick Jane was no automaton. Patrick Jane was an artist.

Charlotte had bobbed her head into his den on that day at precisely that moment, blue eyes wide and curious.

"Daddy?! Look, I made you this painting, look!" and she had wandered over, flashing a large finger painting at his face. Blues and greens and what could have been a yellow sun in a sky. Or a lemon in a grassy field. Her dress had streaks of paint on it and Jane had raised his eyebrows in a cartoonish manner and made a face at the errant paint streaks. That dress hadn't been cheap. And Angela didn't want Charlie to grow up spoiled. He reconsidered her painting. Decided he was looking at the ocean, at the beach. He knew his daughter and knew it was the ocean. Knew the yellow blob in the right hand corner was the sun. He grinned a mammoth smile and oohed and ahhed over the painting, cell still pressed to his ear.

"I can phone you back if this is a bad time?" The voice on the phone said. Stalling. To his daughter, Jane said: "Charlotte, daddy is going to get paid 1.5 million dollars a year to have a talk show on the television." Charlotte erupted at that. A happy scream. She didn't know what 1.5 million was worth, (as far as she was concerned it was only a few cents more than 10 bucks) but she knew her Daddy wanted her to be "happy", so she was.

"Would you like to say thank you to our friend, Bob?" Charlotte had nodded. He had handed her the phone and she took it and babbled into it. A chirpy "thank you, Bob!" and then some extraneous babble about ponies she liked. She liked all sorts of ponies, but especially _geldings_. The ones that were "dapple grey" coloured. And unicorns. Unicorns had maybe existed at one time. Maybe they had gone extinct. Maybe they were still alive in the world, somewhere far away, like Africa, or like Canada, in the woods up there. Narwhals, those were whales with horns, and they were like the unicorns of the sea, fat, blubbery unicorns of the sea up there to keep the Eskimos company and...

Jane gently took the phone back.

"Bob. Sorry about that. She's excited. You know how kids can get when they're excited." This was followed by a small chuckle. _Kids._

"Mister Jane... like I said, I can't sign off on that, I can only ask-"

"You know that this is no problem. You know he'll say yes. You know it, and I know it... and I have _faith in you, Bob_. I am going to let you go now, though, okay? Have a good day, Bob. And stop stressing? It's bad for the cholesterol levels."

A startled silence. Robert Harrison had just got his blood test results back a week ago with a script for Lipitor. The doc had said no more bacon, and only 1 egg a week

"I'll see what I can do." The voice on the cell phone said. A bit uneasy now. To watch psychics make crazy predictions on TV was one thing. To have them suddenly tell you all about your personal life on the phone, when you had never actually been in the same room with them, was quite another. Jane had smiled, said goodbye. Hung up the phone. High-fived Charlotte and told her to go get changed before Mommy got back from grocery shopping. ("No more finger painting when you're wearing those pretty dresses, okay Charlie? That paint stains." Okay, Daddy.")

That had been 19 days ago. It was only in retrospect that Jane, now on the veranda of the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe, realized that October 10th had been a full moon. What was called the "Harvest Moon". Also called the "Sanguine Moon". The blood moon. October 10th he got the call and had asked for more money. October 10th he had made his predictions about Red John on television for the first time. Things were looking up and he was harvesting quite a lot this year. That harvest moon... that was a real piece of serendipity.

2 weeks and 5 days later, a contract with NBC for 2.1 million a year for a show with the working title: _Across the Veil with Patrick Jane_. He liked the title, and he was pretty sure Angela would like it too. It was catchy, without being over-the-top cheesy.

Jane stared out at the ocean now, meditative. Enjoying the moment. Breathing in the cool salt air. The sound of the ocean waves hushing themselves over the sand. There were tiki torches lit in the sand in front of the beach cafe, glowing brightly, flames dancing and lilting in the mild breeze. He pulled out his cell phone and smiled. Punched in the number. One ring. Two rings.

"Patrick?" She sounded a bit worried.

"Yeah, it's me. You're never going to believe it. I got a television show. 2.1 million a year."

"What are you talking about?"

So he told her. He told her how he'd been approached and been offered the deal with NBC and diplomatically "asked" for more money and how he'd gotten over 2 mill by dazzling the show's prospective producer with some trivia about the man's creepy scout master who had died back in the 70s while on a canoe trip in Sunriver, Oregon. How it was a 3 year contract. How she could stay home with Charlie or get into aromatherapy or maybe go for her degree and how their beach house was going to be totally paid off now (it almost was, anyway, but now nothing in the physical world was off limits) and how he could now buy Charlie anything she could possibly ever want. Absolutely anything. Angela was ecstatic. She didn't like the idea of spoiling Charlie, but the security was a Godsend. Charlie would be set for life. Of course, he could stay and celebrate. Have one of the NBC guys drive him home and maybe someone to drive home the car, too. No problem, babe.

Patrick grinned. The brandy was hitting him exceptionally hard tonight. He always smiled to himself when his wife called him 'Babe'. She did it to be slightly ironic, as there was nothing innocent about her husband. He did have, though, a slightly "childlike" personality, a strangely charming demeanour that was both precocious and strangely infantile. Angela, one night, with a little bit too much red wine in her system, had confessed to her husband that he sometimes reminded her of "an adorable newborn baby that doesn't have to cry because it can talk, and it can get everything it wants by talking, and by smiling... _yes, smiling just like that_!"

Angela repeated his name and he realized he had drifted off on her.

"Patrick? Do you want to talk to Charlie? She just got out of the bath and... _here she is_!" He could hear the devotion and the pride in his wife's voice for their daughter, and he loved her for it. They both loved their child so, so much.

Jane grinned. Heard the phone switch hands. Heard Charlie say something to his wife that he couldn't quite make out. The television was on in the background, some kids' cartoon.

"Daddy?"

"You're still up? What's my little bedbug still doing up?"

Angela hated it when he called her a bedbug but Charlie laughed, so Patrick still used the nickname.

"I just had a bath!" Charlotte sounded excited. She always sounded excited. She was so sweet, and smart, and full of life. Jane knew all parents (or most parents, anyway, the psychos didn't really count in his books) couldn't be objective about the greatness of their children, but he knew he was being totally objective in his assessment of his daughter. She was an angel. An angel on earth. Nothing less.

"Yeah?"

"You remember that shampoo you got for me? Strawberries and cream? That one?"

You could spend 400 dollars on a custom built gingerbread-style doll house for Charlie (complete with little miniature cherry wood furniture and porcelain dolls), but it was the little things that blew her socks off. Little things like strawberry and cream scented shampoo. Jane grinned. He had picked out that shampoo himself in a little boutique in Beverly Hills. He had found the pink cartoon poodle on the front especially endearing. Charlie had, too, apparently.

"Yes. I know the one."

"It smells even better tonight than it did the other night. More strawberrier."

"Really? Why do you think that is?"

"I don't know, but I think it might even be even more strawberrier tomorrow night."

"Wouldn't that be amazing? You know what? I bet you're right."

"There is a new mailman today. I saw him. He is nice. He asked me my name."

"Oh? What did you say?"

"I said I didn't speak to strangers, even if they are mailmen."

Jane tried to keep the smile out of his voice at that.

"And...what did he say?"

"He said that if a little girl named Charlotte lived here to give her this parcel from her Uncle Danny. Guess what was inside it? Guess what Uncle Danny sent to me?" The excitement was back.

"What did Uncle Danny send to you?"

"An _orangutan_!"

"I don't think mommy is going to want an orangutan running around the house."

Charlie giggled at that.

"No daddy, a stuffed orangutan."

"A plush one? Like Mr. Fluffington?" Mr. Fluffington was Charlie's rabbit. She had had it since the delivery room, a rabbit three times as big as she had been on the day of her birth, purchased in the hospital's gift shop by an ecstatic and uncharacteristically nervous father. He had purchased Angela chocolates, and he still remembered how she had laughed at the box of Black Magic and made a corny joke about how she could have used "black magic" an hour into contractions. She had been exhausted and sweat-drenched, but she had still laughed at the chocolates, had still cracked jokes.

"Yes! Like Mr. Fluffington, but realer. It looks just like one of the orangutans on the Discovery channel, though, not like a toy one. Like a _real_ one. If it was made out of fabric."

"A real one made out of fabric?"

A beat. "Daddy, you're teasing me!" Charlie sounded mock-scandalized.

"Am not. What else is new since this morning?"

Charlie then told him mommy had finally got her her Halloween costume. The first costume she, herself, had picked out. Last year she had been four, but this year, five and old enough to decide. Jane had wanted to send her as an angel, or a princess. Charlie had opted to go as Nemo, from the Disney movie. Jane smiled wider. He always found his daughter charming but the effect was augmented with three brandies under his belt and a new 2.1 million-a-year television contract. The waves lap, lap lapping at his subconscious. He rubbed his eyes, mystified by the swirl of stars overhead.

"Can my little bedbug put Mommy back on the phone?" He knew Charlie would talk all night if he let her.

Charlie murmured "uh huh", told her daddy she loved him and he heard Angela come back on. They chatted for a few more minutes. Patrick Jane disconnected, smiling out at the ocean. He inhaled deeply, considered how far they had come, he and Angela, since they'd first met. The sky above him was full dark now, glowing with starlight. _Magical_. The nocturnal waves lapped and retreated, the ancient heartbeat of the ocean, and the night birds in the tropical trees in the hills behind him cooed and warbled their eerily beautiful night songs. Jane went back into the cafe. He'd have some water, then another brandy. Later, when he looked back on this night, he wouldn't be able to remember, not with absolute certainty, if he had told his wife he loved her. He thought so. But he wouldn't be sure.

* * *

He tried to piece things together for them. He tried, but it was hard. He'd come home around 4:30 a.m. They hadn't even ordered appetizers until midnight. Calimari. Breaded, deep fried mozzarella sticks. Nachos with three different types of cheese, ground beef, banana peppers, sour cream, black olives, garlic chives, guacamole. He could remember the stupidest details. The nacho toppings. The black outside the windows, full dark. Sycophantic laughter, more drinks. The giddy, almost self-detrustive drinking. Around 4 a.m. his head started to clear. It had been so, so late. He'd spoken of getting a taxi home, and that Dylan Stewart had soothed: "I won't hear of it, Pat. No, you'll get a ride home with me. I'll get someone to bring your car home tomorrow."

And they had done just that. There'd been strange chanting music in the car, like Gregorian chanting. This was switched off after a few minutes. Dylan Stewart opened his mouth wide like a baby bird, blinked hard. Jane had been rising and falling into dreamland then, face jammed against the cold passenger seat window. Still drunk, then.

Dyaln Stewart, eyes sparkling, boring into him like gimlets. Jane staggered, just a bit, as he got out of the passenger seat. Stupid grin at his faulty step. Stewart leaned over. Grinned widely.

"I had a great time meeting you, Patrick. I've heard a lot about you."

"Oh?"

"You seem like one hell of a guy, Pat. Glad I could meet you firsthand. I'll wait here until I am sure you're in... safe and sound." The last part, slightly sarcastic. Jane nodded, chuckled to himself and sloshed over to the front door. God, he was home so, so late. The time had disappeared there in the middle, escaped him. But he'd phoned home. Angela, he knew, would still be up, waiting for news. Excited and only acting disappointed in his marathon drinking session. She'd give him a token lecture, then kiss him on the side of his stubbly cheek and hug him. Or maybe she'd be reading under the big lamp in the living room. Or curled up in bed, sleeping, face all flushed with sleep. So many delightful possibilities. Jane reached the front door, slid the key home and turned. It seemed to catch for a second, just a second, which was a little weird as that lock had always turned over easy as anything, smooth as silk. He pulled the door open. Dylan, in his car, smiling brightly. He waved and honked, once. Patrick entered the house.

The downstairs lights, some of them, were on. Just enough that he could see, but not so many as to denote Angela's presence. Patrick forced himself to sober up. A cup of cold water in the kitchen. He rinsed his mouth out, spat. Splashed cold water on his face and felt reality surge and the warm, fuzzy drunkeness ebb away, just slightly. He turned the kitchen lights off and wandered into the large living room. Past Charlie's fire engine red tricycle, abandoned for the night. Up the stairs, a smile on his face as he pictured Charlie asleep on her side, Mr. Fluffington under her arm, thumb in her mouth, nightlight twirling pastel fairies on the ceiling. Angela would be in bed, lamp on, reading. Or sleeping. She may have very well gone to bed.

Later, looking back, he'd feel the first fingers of fear dancing on his back halfway down the hall, a shadow of a premonition. Something pinging off, for the very first time, in his subconscious, some horrible, final truth. In the subconscious world, a picosecond was an eternity. In the conscious world it would be several more seconds before his smile began to falter. The smile hitched and died as he began to read the letter taped to the closed master bedroom door.

* * *

**"Dear mister Jane,**

**I do not like to be slandered in the media, especially by a dirty money-grubbing fraud. If you were a real psychic, instead of a dishonest little worm, You wouldn't need to open the door to see what I've done to your lovely wife and child."**

* * *

There was no signature at the bottom. Jane felt the blood drop out of his head, felt something quite unlike drunkenness freeze up his brain. Oh, he knew who this was. He knew. A signature would have been utterly unnecessary. There was only one person who could have written this.

_Dear God. He did not want to open this door. He couldn't open this door. Please, God, please let them be okay. Please let this not be real..._

But he knew it was very real. He knew what he would find. Not the specifics, but the end result, the horror, God, he knew. He didn't believe in God. He didn't. But at that moment his brain prayed, prayed endlessly, it screamed prayers and his body vibrated with electric energy, as if he was being electrocuted. But he was really just standing still, and then his traitorous hand was reaching out, turning the bedroom door knob, even as his brain was taunting him, telling him that from now on his life- if he bothered to still live it- would be forever split into Before and After.

Red John's smiley face staring at him. Winking at him. Fresh red, oh GOD that wasn't red, red is an idea but he would call it red he would only think red, fresh red

(bloodit'sbloodJaneit'stheirbloodit'sCharliesbloodit'sAngelasbloodohgodohgodnoooo )

and, and his feet moved him into the room like a little tin soldier. His mouth jerked. His mouth jerked and his sanity could not make sense of what he was seeing. He was seeing puzzle pieces that could not fit in his reality, they would never fit, these pieces could not fit in a world where the sun continued to come up and gravity continued to hold people to the surface of the planet.

(Godarethoseherlungs? Those...those are lungs)

His thoughts were all disconnected, shattered. The image before him was horrific, lurid and unreal in its' crazy violence and he felt the scream in his belly long before it got to his lips. An animal scream, something he had no control over. His body was screaming even as his legs raced to them. To his wife. His daughter.

(lung wings lung wings he pulled her lungs out)

Charlie, facing Angela, cradled and posed on top of the sheets and wings on her back, for a crazed moment he thought he was looking at her new Halloween costume, but those weren't normal wings, they were pink tissue sacs (_lungs_), straining from her white nightdress wings, they were her lungs, her lungs pulled out through her back oh GOD!

Oh. God. Angela, Angela clearly dead, cradling Charlie, eyes open, glazed glassy doll eyes, a tender moment between Angela and her sanguine, breathless angel

(her wings are her lungs, he pulled her lungs out, he pulled them out her sweet dear lungs oh god)

He staggered over, he sank. He touched Angela's face. Still warm. Turned Charlie's head and could, oh God he could barely look. Her eyes were closed, her eyes closed forever, both of them.

They had been brutally murdered while he was eating nachos with guacamole and organic chives.

* * *

"I was late because I was having drinks. A contract for a television show had gone through." His voice to the cop on the other couch is dead, monotone. The cop has a serious, sad face. A well practiced, maybe half-genuine sad face. Lined and sad and somewhat desensitized. The house is buzzing with police, alien creatures all stern and stiff like movie extras. Flashing lights of cameras, worker bees dusting for fingerprints, a pair of drones asking Jane questions. Where had he been? Why home so late?

There was vomit in the hallway. That is Jane's. He has blood on his hands. On his clothing. He had cradled their bodies to his chest. Cradled them. Rocked them. There were at least a dozen people who could tell the cops he had been at Paradise Cove Beach Cafe and he doesn't care anyway, doesn't care about a lawyer or what happens now. They'd asked him if he wanted a lawyer and he just shook his head, as if clearing away a bad dream, eyes detached and far away. Because it didn't matter what happened now.

Except it did matter, because Red John had done this. Around then there'd been a hush and the police officer questioning him had gotten up and wandered away for a while. He came back sometime later, face even more serious, if that was possible. Dylan Stewart the little television executive had been found dead in his apartment, no struggle, cause undetermined. No nothing. Just no more Dylan Stewart.

"I really think you should get a lawyer, Mr. Jane."

He may have shouted "no" at that point. No lawyer. Brief exchange of potent police officer looks. This was clearly a man on the very skittering, teetering edge of sanity.

"No lawyer. I do not want a lawyer." Eerily calm. The type of calm that precedes a full-scale freak out. The type of calm that is tantamount to lifting a thousand pounds deadweight, only with your soul.

Jane got up. Blinked hard, like someone coming out of a concussion. " Dylan Stewart? He's dead?"

"Yes."

"And the others?"

"We are talking to them right now, phoning around."

Jane sat back down. Stared at the drying red on his hands. Blinked again.

"Red John did this."

He was staring at his hands and did not see the looks, wouldn't have cared about them anyway.

"I talked about him on television. I mocked him. He killed my family. He left that smiley face. He killed my wife. My daughter."

There was a buzzing in his head. Sometime later someone got him a glass of water. Told him to breathe slower, take slower breaths. He hadn't been aware he was breathing too fast, but spots were jumping in his vision.

Sometime after that he saw the black bags on the gurneys, saw the lumpy human-sized shapes in the black bags, strapped down by the orange belts so they wouldn't slide off the silent gurneys and he felt reality tilt, actually tilt like he was on the Tilt-a-Whirl at the county fair of his boyhood days and it was a crazy, surreal feeling, everything spinning and he felt like his organs might fly out into space, his sanity, spun off like red blood cells in a vial in a centrifuge, spinning away forever.

(her lungs he pulled out her lungs)

"Patrick? I think we should have a doctor look at you. I think you're in shock."

The voice cutting through his thoughts, the words disconnected. He knew he knew those words but there was no meaning in them now. The voice could have said something like:

"Brown dog eats urine pasta sunday monday polka dot sky."

A jumble of nothingness. He blinked hard. Something cleared. He had an imaginary vision of himself sitting on a bed in an Emergency room, having some smooth-talking social worker natter at him in the same tone they used on the psychotics, the penlight in his eyes, the cuff monitoring his blood pressure, and if whatever had fallen over him like a nerve gas continued, maybe an IV.

Was this shock? This freezing, spinning, shattering away into something that was dull, like novocaine? Like reality itself had been numbed, not just the images, all fuzzy and far-away but also the meanings of things, those meanings, also fuzzy and not-making-sense? Except, on a deeper level, he knew he was in shock, and he knew they were dead, and that deeper core part was screaming, was keening like a soul in Hell. Jane licked his lips. Frowned. Stared at the cop who'd been trying to talk to him.

"_What_?"

The man mumbled something back, all soft and careful.

Another heavy blink. "No. I don't need a doctor."

"I'd like a paramedic to look you over here, then. And we have some people you can talk to-"

"No." No. What could they do. Watch him cry? Tell him... _what_ exactly? How many of them had ever gone on TV disparaging a narcissistic serial killer and ended up securing the death of their partner, their child?

"Just tell me- my daughter. My daughter and... those were her lungs. Those were her lungs, right?" Normal words. So normal. How could those words sound so normal? How could they come so easily?

He knew they were her lungs, _he knew it_, but the words tumbled out anyway. He needed to hear the man across from him say it. None of it would be real unless someone else said it. Probably multiple times. His brain was just not processing this right. It had gotten stuck when it first saw the bloody smiley face. It had known whatever was coming would be bad, and then it had ceased to pick up new information, to connect any more pieces. And it was still not-connecting. Stubborn thing.

"I am not a pathologist, Patrick. I-" Stalling. Stalling. Patrick Jane knew stalling. Jane was the king of stalling.

He looked up at the police officer. Startingly young guy, Jane could see. Young, stern face. Intelligent, dark eyes shuttered in dark rings that made him look ill and sickly. His face looked more than a little haggard. A little horrified. More than a little horrified. This was the kind of horror show that could make or break a rookie. But the guy didn't speak like a rookie, not really. Maybe he was a rookie, though, not to the job, but to this level of horror.

(_Welcome to the club, buddy_)

"They _weren't _her lungs?"

"Patrick, I really think you should speak to someone. You shouldn't be alone right now."

He didn't respond. Then he did respond. It was, insanely, impossibly, a snorted bark of laughter. "You shouldn't be alone right now." Jane repeated dully.

Felt his lips twitching crazily.

The man had just spewed at him the type of bullshit he had heard on crime dramas in the early evening when he had sat, not that long ago, with Angela. After Charlie was in bed, watching _Law and Order_ and similar shows, watching them because Angela found them "exciting", and Jane liked being near her, whatever the show was. This guy sounded just like one of the police officers on _Law and Order_. He could remember Angela swatting him playfully on the arm when he'd commented on the predictable dialogue. Sometimes, usually about three quarters of the way through an episode, all she'd have to do was glance in Jane's direction and then she'd lose it. Laughing. Just looking at his face.

"At least... at least let one of us drive you to a motel. Get you a room. Somewhere to stay, then."

Right. No way he could stay here. Stay home.

His home was a crime scene.

Jane nodded. He didn't know if his car was back yet. Probably not. Since Dylan Stewart was dead. But maybe it was. Not that he could drive anyway. He'd let them drive him away. He wasn't aware of consenting. He wasn't really aware of anything but the drying red on his hands. More drying red on his clothes. He blinked. Time stretched. Time snapped back like an elastic and someone was talking to him. Someone had packed him a bag. Someone said...

* * *

**Wednesday, October 30th, 2013**

"Has anyone seen Jane today?" Teresa Lisbon's voice was slightly annoyed, but under that annoyance was a thin layer of worry. Everyone knew what day this was.

Rigsby and Cho both looked up at the same time. Cho simply shook his head no.

"Uh, no, boss." Rigsby said, in that slightly guilty-sounding tone of voice he always seemed to have whenever telling someone something he knew they didn't want to hear.

"Van Pelt?"

"I haven't seen him," the young redhead confirmed, only making eye contact with Lisbon for a second before looking back down at her computer.

Lisbon nodded tiredly, pulled out her phone and wandered into the hall. Punched Jane's cell number in a little too forcefully. It rang and rang and eventually she got his voice mail.

"Jane? Where are you? It's quarter after one and I have been trying your phone all morning. Call me when you get this." Lisbon's words sounded harsh and accusatory, even to her own ears. Before she hung up, she added. "I just... I hope you're okay. Call me, Jane."

Sighing, she disconnected. Wandered back into her team's office. She went to her desk, sat down. She had tried physically going to Jane's place. No answer. If he was inside, he wasn't answering. Lisbon sat down at her desk, annoyance a poor cover for concern, but it would have to do.

The phone began to ring shrilly then. Lisbon got it before the second ring, jerked the reciever towards her ear.

"Lisbon," she said. Waited. Cho and Rigsby watched, mildly curious. Nobody was doing any work. Nobody could do any work on this day, not with Jane AWOL and god-knows-where.

_"What?!" _Lisbon barked into the phone, and even Van Pelt looked up at the outraged shock in her voice. "No. No, he's not here. Yes, we're on our way."

Lisbon very carefully put the phone back in its cradle. Nobody said anything. Rigsby was the first to break the ice.

"Boss? What's up?" His voice was uneasy... worried even.

"_Red John_... that son of a bitch killed the preschool-aged son and wife of a relatively well-known palm beach carnival psychic this morning," Lisbon sounded both enraged and horrified and shocked, all at the same time. "Same... _display_ as with Jane's family."

She didn't wait for anyone to say anything, but instead turned and left the room. She knew they would be following behind her, and soon enough, they would all have access to the crazy, gory details, but Lisbon didn't want to see their eyes right now, their shock, their communal pain.

Didn't want to think about where Jane might be at this moment in time. The worry she had felt all morning ratcheted itself up another notch. Felt like a boa was compressing her lungs, making it hard to breathe.

Cho, Rigsby and Van Pelt had caught up to her by the time she reached the elevators and punched the down arrow button. Before they could say anything, Lisbon had her cell phone out, was punching in Jane's number again, frowning at the cell, frowning at it angrily as if it was the cell phone's fault she couldn't talk to Jane.

One right...two rings...three rings... then: "_You've reached the voice mail of Patrick Jane, please leave a message and I will return your call at my convenience_."

"Jane? I need to know where you are! I need to know you are okay, so if you are okay, call me as soon as you get this. Red John... look, call me. It has to do with Red John. Call me, please."

She realized she almost sounded like she was begging. Ended the call.

Jane would call or he wouldn't. She would have to trust that he was okay.

* * *

Please review! That is chapter one. This is hard to write! Hard to get their characters down, but I hope I have done a relatively okay job. Please review with any tips, comments, trivia about the show, anything. Everything. I really need the fans to help me out with reviews on this one, as I rarely watch TV.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** Charlotte's Web (Chapter Two) by Lexikal  
**Rating:** M for graphic violence and language  
**Fandom:** The Mentalist  
**Summary:** Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.

**Author's Note:** Author's note is long for this chapter, at the end of the chapter. Please review.

* * *

_"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."_- Arthur Conan Doyle, The Boscombe Valley Mystery

_"Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides."_- André Malraux

_"Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken."_ - Jane Austen, _Emma _

_"The speaker has no value whatsoever, nor what he says. What has value is how you understand yourself in listening to what he says. He is like a mirror, in which you see yourself reflected. Your consciousness, your daily activity, your unconcious demands, pursuits and fears are exposed. When you so listen, then you begin to discover for yourself not the ideas, the conclusions, the assertions of the speaker, but rather you see for yourself what is true and what is false." - _Krishnamurti

* * *

**Wednesday, October 30th, 2013, 1:16 P.M. Pacific Standard Time**

Patrick Jane awoke with a gasp, head pounding miserably. He blinked and light pierced his brain like meat-hooks. The taste in his mouth was abysmal. Tasted like something had crawled inside his mouth, something in the rodent family, and taken a forever-nap. He rubbed at his eyes, dimly wondering why his back and neck ached so badly. Sat up.

He was sitting up on a park bench in a park he had never been before- not during his waking hours at any rate. Jane looked around dazedly, eyes bright and curious as a cat's. Last thing he had known he had been on his way home the night before with a bottle of D'arenberg "dead arm" Syrah (_"This one has a delightful full body with just a hint of cloves and blueberries coming through on the nose," _the gawky, owlish salesman had told Jane proudly, and Jane had been sold) and plans to look over his Red John files for the umpteenth time while drinking the red in honour of his slain loved ones. He couldn't remember actually opening the bottle, let alone taking a drink, and the time in the interim was a complete blank.

"Interesting," Jane drawled. He saw him them, standing near a tree. A young child- boy, no doubt- leaning nonchalantly against the tree. What sort of tree was that? Dutch elm? Looked about right. The child was wearing a mask. A wolf mask. Jane blinked.

"It's not Halloween just yet," he said aloud, mildly comforted by the easy, dulcet tones of his own voice. Jane forced himself to stand up, eased the aches out of his muscles and then, slowly, deliberately, walked towards the small person leaning against the tree. The small person in the blue jeans and lace-up sneakers and black, pull-over sweatshirt with the v-neck stitching. The young person wearing the molded-plastic wolf head with the strangely chatoyant eyes. What were those eyes made out of? Glass? Looked like glass. Strange for glass eyes to be embedded in what looked like a plastic mask, but, upon closer inspection, Jane could tell the mask was no five-and-dime cheap Chinese knock-off product. Even the texture of the wolf's fine guard hairs appeared to be molded into the plastic. Or was it ceramic? This was an undoubtedly an expensive mask being worn by a very small, very alone, very silent kid who was watching him with studious recognition.

"Hey there," Jane said when he was 10 feet away from the boy. The child's masked face turned silently to the side in recognition of being hailed. Jane hadn't exactly worked out what he wanted to say. Indeed, he wasn't quite sure what he wanted to say. The kid didn't say anything back, just went right on watching him. Jane watched him back, silently, was certain that this strange wolf-boy wasn't just a regular, innocent kid gallivanting around in the park.

Finally, Jane decided to just go with the obvious. "You're watching me."

There was a beat and the small head shifted in what could almost be considered a nod of acknowledgment.

"You finally woke up," a gravelly, oddly not-young voice informed the mentalist before him. Whatever friendly smile had been on Patrick Jane's face faded away, like clouds passing over the face of the sun.

"You've been waiting for me to wake up." It wasn't a question.

The boy took a step forward, then another, and placed a folded piece of paper in his hand.

"This is from him."

"Him?" Jane prodded, but he already knew. His blood felt chilled, as it always did, when "he" was playing games and pulling strings in the shadows of normal mortals' lives.

"He said you'd know who he was," the voice said agreeably, confirming the obvious. Jane gazed down at the paper in his hand, unfolded it.

Written in venous red on expensive off-white rag paper were the words: _When two become as One, the fun will have begun._

Jane glanced back up. The boy was walking away from him already, duty done.

"Hey! Wait a second... the..._man_... who gave you this? Is he still around here?"

The small person stopped, craned his head around.

"He left a long time ago. Paid me fifty dollars to give you that. I have to go, now."

Jane considered running after the kid, pulling that damned wolf mask off his face, demanding more answers. But what good would that do? No doubt the kid knew nothing more than he'd already divulged. Still, the desire (hell, it wasn't a desire, it was a _need_) to not lose this connection to Red John propelled Jane forward. He caught up to the kid, put a hand on his shoulder. The kid froze in his tracks, turned around. Lifted the mask off his face and let it fall to the grassy floor, discarded and forgotten. A small, perfectly innocent little face gazed up at him. An eight year old with freckles, two missing front teeth, eyes the colour of rootbeer floats. Jane was looking down at Beaver Cleaver.

_"Can I help you, mister?" _The boy squeaked out in the uncertain, slightly scared tone of a prepubescent child who has just been stopped in his tracks by a weird, shady "stranger" in a park. Jane scanned the kid's face, but there was no recognition in those soda pop eyes. As far as this boy was concerned, the previous interaction mere seconds ago had never existed. Jane stepped back and shook his head, dismayed but not surprised. The kid gave him a slight warning look and turned around. Began to hurry away from Jane in a half-run, half-walk. Jane let him go and picked the mask up off the grass.

It was indeed expensive, hand-made, venetian carnival style. The front was fabric expertly glued to a molded, plastic backing. The eyes were amber carnival glass baubles with an iridescent sheen to them. Oil on water. Jane flipped the mask over.

Written in calligraphy cursive in what appeared to be red indelible ink was the taunting message: _Happy 10th Anniversary, Patrick!_

Under this message, smiling up at him obscenely in that same, gaudy red ink was a curve-eyed smiley face.

Jane stared at the mask, frozen to his bones. Finally he found his legs and began to march out of the park.

* * *

**Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 1:28 Pacific Standard Time**

Lisbon pulled the car into the crime scene's driveway and got out, Cho and Rigsby hot on her heels. The little house by the water was partitioned off by yellow crime-scene tape. POLICE SCENE- DO NOT CROSS. Lisbon lifted the tape and ducked underneath, flashed her CBI badge at a police officer who was coming towards her with a shut-off, officious seriousness on his face.

She had been told on the phone what the crimes were and who had probably committed them, but nothing could ever prepare someone for coming face to face with the evil that was Red John. She walked up the small, cracking wooden stoop (a glass windchime danced and pealed lazily in the early afternoon breeze, for some reason windchimes would forever remind Lisbon of fairies) and into the home. The smell of febreze air freshener and incense hit her nostrils and caused them to flare. She was directed to a back bedroom and approached it, stiffly.

The door was already open and one of Red John's bastard smiley-faces was grinning mockingly at her already, from way on down the hall. _("Hello, Teresa... we meet again.")_

Lisbon forced herself to walk the full length of the hallway and not turn and run. She already, intellectually, knew what she would find but she had never seen a crime scene that objectively mirrored Jane's tragedy so starkly and she felt the blood thrumming in her ears with anticipation, even 10 feet before she hit the threshold of the bedroom's doorway.

The smiley face was eyeing her coyly, clearly visible from the open doorway, but one had to actually enter the bedroom and look to the right to see the master bed and the "surprise" that had been left there for the doting husband and father and somewhat-successful Palm Springs psychic to the stars. Lying on the bed, eyes open and disturbingly accusing, was the man's wife. Cause of death was not immediately apparent, but what was immediately apparent was the fact that she was dead. Her skin was ashen, pallid. Somehow she had died with an unnatural smile on her lips, and this smile was frozen for all the world to see on her cold, doll-like face. But the eyes... the eyes were haunted and accusing, angry. In her arms was her three-year old cherub of a son, looking so much like a pale Italian _putto _breathed into physical reality on the bed. The mother's hands were wrapped around the naked body of her boy, her fingers long and graceful as a pianist's on his baby-fat arms. If one ignored the fact that the mother and child on the bed were dead- and that the boy's lungs were serving as his "wings"- the scene could almost have been called classically beautiful. Lisbon couldn't see the kid's face and so she couldn't be certain if he was "smiling" or not, and for that fact, she was profoundly grateful to whatever powers may have been guiding her life.

The little boy's lungs had been pulled out of two evil slits cut in his back, created with what appeared to be a very, _very_ sharp surgical scalpel. The words "hobby knife" suddenly came to Lisbon in a flash like angry lightening, and she grimaced. _Hobby_ knife, indeed. Lisbon forced herself to move a bit further towards the chaos, and she stopped breathing altogether. The monstrosity that called himself Red John had tied clear fishing line around the tiny, baby lungs and suspended them from three hooks in the stucco ceiling so that they seemed to float above the small, still body like... like fucking angel wings.

Teresa Lisbon had thought she knew all the facts and details surrounding the deaths of Jane's wife and daughter, but she had never actually read the files. Jane- when he relaxed and grew to trust her enough to share such matters with her- had filled her in and what he had told her about the murders had been dreadful enough. She had had no conscious reason to think he might be keeping details from her, but- if this crime scene was anything like the crime scene that had awaited Jane ten years-to-the-day ago (and probability dictated that it was a veritable recreation of Jane's tragedy, given the date and the _auteur_ responsible)- then he had censored himself during the retelling of facts. Jane had conveniently left out the lungs-turned-wings and... somehow, even worse, was the music. Playing on low, on a CD player in the corner of the room.

"We didn't turn it off. We thought you guys would want to see everything as it was found," one of the crime techs told Lisbon from what sounded like miles away. Lisbon nodded tightly. She found herself at a loss for words. The piece of music that was playing so elegantly in this hellish little room was Bach's Prelude number 1 in C major. It came to a graceful end and then, after a span of two merciless silent seconds, started up again at the beginning.

Lisbon found her voice and forced herself to take a breath. The room felt very, very bright and too hot and she felt prickly, a little swoon-y and like she might faint.

"Yes, thank you." Was what she finally said to the crime techie, and it seemed odd and more than a little strange even to her own ears. She walked over to the CD player, bent down, and none-to-gently jabbed the CD player's off button to shut up that mockingly beautiful music. The piece cut off instantly and she could hear the spinning of the CD in the machine as it spun itself still. The sound of the CD spinning itself to a stop sounded very much like the insistent spinning of blood through her own ears, a far-away steady hiiiiisssssss.

Lisbon forced herself to take a deep breath and the world seemed to jump into focus again. Oxygen was funny that way. She stood back up and sought out Rigsby's eyes. He looked shocked beyond all measure, a little green around the gills, mouth part-way open. Lisbon left him gawking at the violence and reentered the hallway and walked herself back out the front door of the murder site. On the stoop she pulled out her cell phone and dialed Jane for what had to be the thirteenth time since their workday had begun at nine that morning.

After the first ring, Lisbon felt bile crawling around in the back of her throat.

"Come on Jane, answer the god damned phone," Lisbon hissed at the phone in a strangled whisper. Two rings. On the third ring, she heard the call connect.

"Lisbon?" Jane said over the line. He sounded uneasy, a little out of breath and not very much like himself.

"Jane!" His name burst out of her mouth like a gunshot. She stopped herself and forced herself to speak slowly, to be calm, to not give him a piece of her mind for scaring the life out of her.

"Where have you been? I've been trying you all day!"

"I seem to have been a little preoccupied, Lisbon..." Jane drawled cryptically. Lisbon blinked.

"Where are you?"

"I'm at a little bakery called Murray's in Beverly Hills." Jane said conversationally and if Lisbon hadn't been so pumped on adrenaline herself she would have heard the sick, fatigued undercurrent to his voice. . Lisbon nodded to herself. Jane was at a bakery. Why wasn't she surprised?

"You're at a bakery called Murray's?" Lisbon repeated incredulously. Even the name "Murray" suddenly seemed ridiculous to her. "Do you have any idea how worried I've been about you? Wait... you're at a _bakery_?!"

"A place that produces buns, breads, pastries and other baked goods," Jane said in the same annoyingly conversational tone.

"I know what a bakery is!" Lisbon almost shouted. Jane didn't say anything but she thought she heard him chew. Yup. He was chewing. She heard him swallow. Heard him take a sip of something to chase whatever bread product he'd just swallowed. Probably tea.

"I've been trying you all day. Why didn't you answer?!"

"I seem to have been indisposed," Jane said. He took another bite of something. Chewed again.

Lisbon shut her eyes and shook her head miserably. All the adrenaline in her system and her worry over Jane- not to mention the horror show she had just taken in- made her want to scream. She'd have to tread carefully.

"What do you mean, indisposed? Jane?"

"Last thing I remember I was heading home with a bottle of red. Next thing, I am waking up on a park bench in a suburb of Beverly Hills with what feels like the worst hangover of my life, even though I am pretty sure I didn't imbibe last night. Thought I'd stop and top up my blood sugar before coming in. You know how cranky I can get when I haven't eaten."

Lisbon ran his words through her head, filtering out the general playful banter that was indelibly Jane and only ceased to exist when he was terrified or very, very sick. His words suddenly hit her on a profoundly emotional level. _Jane can't remember last night. He can't remember anything from last night. He didn't drink... but he still can't remember. Which means..._

Lisbon wasn't sure exactly what it meant, but she knew in her gut that it wasn't good and it was connected to Red John and this latest atrocity.

"Lisbon, you there?" Jane said when he was done chewing and swallowing that bite.

"I'm here," Lisbon said. Considered her words very carefully. Decided to go with a truncated version of the truth that would no doubt be hitting Jane squarely in the solar plexus all too soon.

"Jane, I'm at a crime scene. A woman and her young son- three years old- were killed some time last night. Coroner puts the time of death at approximately three thirty in the morning. On the bedroom wall, above the bed..." Lisbon trailed. She didn't want to tell him, didn't want to reopen old wounds. Knew she had no choice. Also knew he had gone silent on the phone, that he already knew the rest of this story.

"Jane, I'm at a Red John crime scene."

Jane was silent for a moment longer. No chewing.

"What's the address?" He said after a moment. Lisbon blinked heavily.

"No. _No_, Jane, you hear me? You tell me where you are and I will come and pick you up and bring you back here. But stay where you are." She knew she had her typical Listen-to-me-Jane-I'm-the-Boss tone going full strength, and didn't care one iota. It spoke leagues to Jane's "indisposition" that he didn't try to argue with her, just gave her the address. Lisbon nodded, realized Jane couldn't see her.

"Okay, I'll be there in about 20 minutes, give or take five. Stay there, Jane. I mean it." The barely tempered anxiety in her voice seemed to bring out Jane's protective urges.

"Wouldn't dream of leaving, Lisbon. Best bear claws in town."

But his voice wasn't as bright or playful as usual. It was a for-show voice. Lisbon disconnected. Felt, more than saw, Rigsby and Cho beyond her. They both shot her questioning looks when she turned to meet their eyes.

"That was Jane. He's at a bakery downtown... don't ask. I am going to pick him up. You two. Stay here!" This said gruffly, as if they were small children and she was used to them disobeying orders. Which, Lisbon thought darkly, wasn't often that far from the truth. Cho said nothing, just stared at her with his dark, impassive eyes. Rigsby nodded, but he was still a little too pale. Momentarily satisfied, Lisbon walked to the car, opened the driver's seat, got in.

God help Jane if he set one foot outside that bakery.

* * *

As Lisbon drove, the growing concern she had felt for Jane all morning didn't exactly disappear, but rather, seemed to shape-shift into something else which was not altogether more desirable. Jane couldn't remember any of the night before. Nothing. That didn't sound good, and not just because Jane wasn't prone to alcoholic blackouts.

Lisbon tapped her fingers on the top of the steering wheel as she drove, wincing each time she caught a red light instead of a green. She was certain (well, fairly certain, at least) that Jane would stay true to his word and "stay put" at that damned bakery, but every minute that passed seemed to increase her overall unease that he might change his mind or see something "interesting" out the window and forget his promise... and that would be that. She would arrive, and find him gone.

But more than the annoying idea that Jane might go AWOL on her and wander off was the nagging truth that if Jane did keep to his agreement and she found him where he said he'd be and she got him in the car, well... she would then be obligated to deliver him to that hellish crime scene.

Lisbon knew she would have to take Jane back to that horror show that had been so viciously crafted to resemble his most intimate of personal tragedies. There was no way around that fact, and the idea that Jane would see what she had seen and be reminded of a past that was even more bloody and cruel than she had initially been led to believe made Lisbon uneasy and protective on a profound and very basic level.

She knew Jane often sought to protect her. Despite his playful, irreverant attitude and what some thought of as cocky disregard for the emotions of others, Lisbon knew better. Jane could pretend all he wanted, but strip off all the showmanship and cute comments and dazzling smiles and showy, almost-brazen disregard for rules and protocol... and _eventually_ you were left with a very private, very protective and very kind human being who knew things deeply not only because he was bright and intuitive, but because he had gone through Hell to learn them.

Plainly put, Lisbon didn't want to be responsible for escorting Jane to this particular Hell, this newest in a long line of Red John "originals".

What Patrick Jane "knew" in a deep, profound, eerily accurate way was a skill that had come at a great personal cost, and for every detail Jane gleaned (seemingly from the ether) there were a dozen details he sensed and never shared with another living soul. Lisbon also knew that- for all his smiles and pesky comments- he was an exceptionally compassionate human being. When others hurt, some part of him empathized deeply. And for all his jokes and dry humour and dazzling smiles (most of them worthy of being photographed and used as toothpaste commercial props) there was an equally deep, profound sadness in the man. A compassion that few ever saw because they bought into Jane's mentalism act so completely. But Lisbon knew that sadness was there, and that it beat constantly within him. A second, quantum heart of beating melancholy.

Sometimes Lisbon wondered if Jane didn't act like a dick because if he really opened himself up to his overtly compassionate nature, he would consciously identify with the victims of the crimes they investigated much too deeply and be useless. Lisbon waited for a red light to blink back to green, and pressed down on the gas.

She knew Jane sought to protect her from the ugly realities of life, as much as he could given that she was a CBI agent. Lisbon wasn't sure, but she hoped Jane knew the sentiments were mutual. She desired, strongly, to protect him from any and all demons lying in the wings, waiting to pounce. Most of these demons shared one creator: _Red John._ Lisbon felt even more fiercely protective of Jane whenever Red John came into the picture.

Right now her usual protective instincts were amplified a thousand fold. She wanted to protect him from what was coming, and knew that she couldn't, and that fact was making her jumpy. Making her angry. She hit another red traffic light and swore at it loudly. She checked her watch, ran the directions Jane had given her through the 3 pound GPS system between her ears and estimated another ten minutes on the road. Fifteen if the damn lights kept turning red just as she apprached the intersection.

"Calm down, Teresa," she told herself forcefully, and turned the radio on. Classic rock filled the car, Led Zepellin's "Black Dog". Lisbon listened for a moment, then snapped the radio off with a scowl. Something about the song sounded obscene, and she wasn't sure why. Like a soundtrack to madness.

* * *

She found the bakery with no hiccups, no problems. She could see Jane even before the car fully stopped, sitting alone at a table with a coffee cup and something on a paper plate. Lisbon let herself exhale, schooled her features into something she hoped looked both supportive and professional and opened the driver's side door.

Small bells tinkled and rang as Lisbon entered and a middle aged hispanic man (Murray?) behind the counter looked up and smiled at her. She smiled back as much as she could, which wasn't much, and jerked her head in Jane's direction. He smiled at her, too, a subdued smile, and got up from the table. Reached down, lifted the coffee cup to his lips and drained the last of whatever had been in it. Someone who didn't know him well wouldn't have noticed anything off about him, but Lisbon caught the slight disorientation and the fine lines around his eyes seemed a little deeper than usual. He offered a brown paper bag to her as she approached him.

"Bear claw, Lisbon?" He said in that same irritatingly conversational tone of voice he'd used on the phone. Lisbon knew it was silly to be annoyed by a tone of voice- afterall, how was Jane supposed to sound right now? Anxious? Full of morose sadness? Still, the tone niggled her, especially after the visuals she'd recently... "experienced".

Finally, a second late, she decided to accept his offer of a pastry. Lisbon nodded and accepted the bag, pulled a bear claw from the bag and handed the others back to Jane. She didn't know how to say what needed to be said. Every possible combination of words she ran through her head sounded just plain wrong. She decided to start with easy questions.

"Where's your car?" She asked as they reached the door of the bakery and stepped out onto the asphalt.

Jane shrugged. "I have no idea."

Lisbon blinked, got into the car and leaned over to unlock his side.

"Wait... you don't remember where you left your car?"

"Like I told you, Lisbon, last thing I remember is driving back home with a bottle of red. Then... _nada_."

Lisbon wasn't sure why it scared her worse that Jane's memory had cut out while he was driving, but it did. Before she could say anything else, Jane piped up.

"I have no doubt we will find my car, if that helps your anxiety level any. Probably at home, waiting for me, like a good little Citroën."

Lisbon nodded- she didn't want to grill Jane about how he knew that right now- she felt strangely exhaused despite the recent adrenaline flood. She put the keys in the ignition, thought of thanking Jane for staying at the bakery and not running off, and thought better of it. Jane wasn't five years old. Most people would expect a grown man to be where he'd promised to be.

"He left this for me," Jane said simply, before she could pull out of the parking lot, and handed her a mask. Lisbon stared at it for a second. A garish wolf face was staring up at her with glittering amber eyes. Just the sight of the thing gave her the bone-deep creeps.

"Turn it over," Jane prodded and Lisbon flipped it over, read the comment. Grimaced.

"Son of a bitch," She said to no one in particular. Jane cocked his head to the side, no levity in the expression.

"The kid who was wearing that- long story- handed this to me first. Also from Red John."

And he handed her the paper. Lisbon carefully unfolded it, read the rhyme outloud.

"When two become as One, the fun will have begun. What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Lisbon scowled at the paper, folded it back up, handed it back to Jane. He took it and tucked it into his suit vest, some hidden pocket somewhere, a magician with his wand.

"He's playing with me. This is a milestone for us. A whole decade since..." Jane trailed, and whatever playful tone had been left in his words dried up completely. There was no need for him to finish his sentence.

"Jane... the crime scene..." Lisbon huffed out a weary sigh. "You never told me..." She couldn't finish it. Couldn't even say the words. Jane was staring at her with hauntedly bright eyes, lit up from the inside of his soul like a jack-o-lantern come to life. The flames behind his eyes, lambent behind the corneas, burning brightly and hot, full of pain and anger.

"There were some details that didn't need to be repeated," Jane said simply, darkly. Lisbon watched his face for a moment, nodded. Decided to let it rest. The car was still purring, ready to drive them to wherever they wanted to go.

"Maybe your car? Maybe we should look for it first? At least check to see if it has been reported or-"

"You're stalling, Lisbon," Jane said, and this time, a bit of the playful gentleness was back. Just a little bit. Lisbon stared at him, hard. Had the sudden. intense urge to reach over and hug him, but knew she would never bring herself to do it. Jane was watching her back with his bright, impossibly perceptive eyes. Sadness and anger were in those eyes, and bone-deep dread, but also tolerance. Love, even.

"I'll be fine, Lisbon." This he said softly. Lisbon gave him the anemic shadow of a smile. Nodded.

God, she wished she could believe that.

* * *

-End of chapter- please review-

End of chapter note: Okay, so my sister likes this. Good to know. I still feel the deep-rooted need to watch more episodes of the show now, just to get the team dynamics and more subtle personality traits of each character "down". Jane circa 2013 lives on the roof of the CBI building, in what amounts to a shed, yes? Looks like a pretty crummy place to be, but I see it as his form of atonement. He doesn't want to enjoy life in the midst of his family's murder. I realize that RJ on the show wasn't supposed to have pulled "Charlotte's" lungs out (or rather, the exact details are unknown). What the fans do know is that neither his wife or child "suffered", but nobody really knows what RJ did with the bodies (the general consensus is he did nothing beyond killing them and painting Angela's toenails with blood). I like to think a genius sociopath like Red John would view the bodies as "canvasses" to send Jane a message, but perhaps I am a bit twisted. By the way, the act of pulling someone's lungs out while they are *still alive* is an ancient Nordic torture ritual and the name of the ritual is the "Blood Eagle". Historically (for those that believe it was historically committed and not just a detail added to the Nordic saga legends) the victim's ribs were cut (while still alive) along the spine, then the ribs were broken and finally the lungs were forcibly pulled out of the back through these slits and positioned above the head so that they resembled bloody angel wings. Salt was then rubbed into the wounds (remember the old saying about salt being added to wounds?) to increase the pain in the final moments of life. Some people assume that this barbaric practice is only a myth, but I believe it was actually done to people. Those that believe it is historical fact believe it spoke to the degree of the Pagan's hatred of Christianity (maybe the angel wings are a symbolic spitting on their beliefs?) but so much has been lost with time. At any rate, if you think about what a victim must have experienced as they endured this torture, it probably makes you feel a little faint and short of breath. I know I feel a little faint contemplating it for any length of time.

Regarding the moniker "Red John"- to me this has always sounded Nordic, like a Viking's name (ie: "Eric the Red"). In "Eric the Red"'s case, the appellation "red" referred to his hair colour but I believe RJ is referring quite literally to blood with the "red", as well as danger (what colour are warning lights?). John is a well known substitute for the name "Jack", and so I also think there is a possibility RJ is paying homage to the great, never-identified Jack the Ripper (and all the mythology associated with slasher Jack). Perhaps RJ is even saying that the same powerful evil that animated Jack the Ripper gives him his power, or rather, that they are two different forms of the same beast? For those that study both religion and philosophy, there is on-going debate about the nature of evil and whether evil can take physical, material form and, if this is so, might these evil spirits/souls take vaguely human forms and stalk and hunt the innocent but never slip up and "get caught" like mere, "sick" mortals? (Jack the Ripper and The Zodiac killer being two examples of prolific serial killers who taunted the police but were never caught, despite the sheer magnitude of their taunting). At any rate, RJ is highly educated and intelligent and I'd like to think he put more than a little bit of thought into his name.

One aspect of fan fiction submission that has bothered me in the past is that readers want to know if such-and-such a character or interaction or experience is "real", or if it is a dream, hallucination, trick of the light, etc... I think reality is nothing but shadows and our personal interpretations and that "real" is relative, so please don't ask me what in my stories is real- you will scramble my brain and you are likely to get back a philosophical inquiry such as "how are you defining 'real'?" I like to write in such a way as to enable readers to draw their own conclusions, and I also think the state of not-knowing everything with absolute confidence builds the richness of a tale. In this canon we are dealing with theatrical, tricky, slippery characters (both Red John and Patrick Jane, himself) who use hypnosis, sleights-of-hand and mental manipulation to make their presence felt. In the "Mentalist" universe, more than any other I have yet entered, the lines don't seem to be clearly drawn, and I like the dreamy, unhinged moments in stories, where the audience just "never knows". Short answer? If you want something to be real, it is real.

Please review. Reviews give me the confidence to go forward.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** Charlotte's Web (Chapter Three) by Lexikal  
**Rating:** M for graphic violence and language  
**Fandom:** The Mentalist  
**Summary:** Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.

**Author's Note: **Wow, a little bit of time to write! Yay! Hopefully I can have this chapter up relatively soon (sorry for the lags between chapters, my life is unpredictable time-wise right now). Like I said, I have only seen a handful of episodes so I didn't realize they were stationed at Sacramento. Thanks "Kat", for telling me that the distance between Sacramento and Beverly Hills would be 6+ hours by car. I have already worked it into the story and I hope it doesn't seem too crazy, working that little blip in. Hiccups like that... can actually be entertaining, but I have been doing a little bit more research so hopefully I don't mess it up again, although it actually doesn't impact the story and my original "vision". ;) Also, and perhaps admitting this isn't prudent, but... I can be a stubborn thing. I like positive reviews but if I feel obligated to do something I often lose interest (and time I have for writing is actually very limited). If you wait, you generally get a better quality story out of me, when I write because I feel pressured, you get anemic dish water. Oh yeah, the distance between Malibu (where Jane's house is) and Sacramento is 403.26 miles, about 6 hours and 17 minutes by car. The distance between Santa Monica (the crime scene) and Beverly Hills (where Jane woke up) is about 6 miles or 15 minutes by car. The distance between Malibu (Jane's house) and the crime scene (Santa Monica) is 35 kilometers (or 56 miles), about 32 minutes driving time. I am probably just going to buy myself a damn road map of the state of Califonia to write this story. I don't really know what the inside of Jane's house in Malibu looks like except for the flashback scene when he comes home to find the note from Red John taped to his bedroom door, so I am taking some liberties with the house (if you know what the house looks like in great detail and I have messed up, please accept that this is fan fiction and accept my apologies in advance). I just watched an episode of Hannibal last night called "Coquilles" in which the killer takes the victims lungs out to make "angel wings" and ties them up with clear fishing line to the ceiling (in the first murder scene, at least). I would like to be very clear. I wrote the Red John murder scene in the last chapter MONTHS before that episode of Hannibal aired. I did not copy it even though it is almost word for word (in terms of details) what *I* wrote months ago. My "story" was posted online way before "Coquilles" aired, so please, no accusing me of stealing. Review!

* * *

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."- George Orwell

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear."- C.S. Lewis

"It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It can not be taken from you, not by angels or demons, not by heaven or hell." - The Buddha

* * *

**Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 1:48 P.M. P.S.T.**

They'd been driving for 10 odd minutes when Lisbon realized, to her growing unease, that Jane wasn't speaking. She'd been running questions and information and the earlier horror show through her own mind, not quite sure how to address this situation, how to act around Jane and it took ten minutes- at least- to realize that he was quietly looking out the passenger seat window. Lisbon thought of the small (_tired_) smile Jane had flashed her, almost obligatorily, when she had entered the bakery and her fingers tightened subconsciously on the wheel.

"2,745 seconds," Jane said, then, and Lisbon darted a look at him. He turned to face her.

"Jane?" The line between her eyebrows knit together in worry.

"2,745 seconds. That's how long you've not been talking to me. 11 minutes and 45 seconds. I was counting. The crime scene can't be..." and he didn't finish whatever half-baked sentence he'd been thinking about serving her as conversation fodder. Lisbon sighed, put on her blinkers and turned off and onto a side road, eased the car to a stop but kept it running. Jane, who had returned to gazing out the window turned back to look at her once more. His pupils seemed monstrously huge, engulfing the sea blue of his eyes like expanding black holes. Lisbon felt a shiver run down her spine, the hand of a waking ghost. What was that ghost named? Angela? Charlotte?

"Lisbon? Why have we stopped?" His voice was slightly imperial, just enough to let her know she was talking to the real Patrick Jane, CBI Mentalist extraordinaire and not a pod person, one of those body doubles from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (She'd seen the 1978 version when she was little and still had the occasional nightmare about Donald Sutherland's slack face and nightmarish perm). Lisbon scowled at him, suddenly feeling a flash of anger. She reigned it in.

"Jane..." she started. stopped, sighed. Tried again. "You seem a little... off."

Jane smiled at the pronouncement dazedly and it did nothing to reassure Lisbon about his lucidity.

"I'm not off, Lisbon. I have never been more on in my entire life."

And yet his words, lilting and playful and undeniably Jane had a drunken slightly slurred quality to them. His eyes- staring at her fixedly like the eyes of a porcelain doll- the pupils still huge and monstrous and hypnotic. The term "dying supernova" suddenly came to her and she wasn't sure why.

"You seem impaired. Drugged or..._something else_. Your pupils are hugely dilated and you have no memory for the last... what? Twelve hours?"

"Something like that," Jane admitted in agreement, nodding his head in mock candor. "Although I suppose if I could remember when I lost consciousness, they wouldn't call it amnesia, now, would they?"

"I'm taking you to the hospital. I want a doctor to look you over."

"No. We need to go to the crime scene," Jane said determinedly, still staring at her.

"Jane you could have a head injury or some other medical condition possibly requiring professional assistance. I want you to see a doctor."

"Red John has sent me a message, Lisbon. What is obviously- given the date and the details as you have relayed them to me- a very important message. He is not a man that likes to play second fiddle to the medical establishment. And he would not have permanently hurt me, at least not physically, neurologically. You know that. And I know that."

"I don't know that!" Lisbon blurted, frustration bubbling over. "Jane," Lisbon breathed. (_Stay calm, don't blow up at him. You know you don't want to blow up at him_) "I want a doctor to look you over. After that, I'll take you to any crime scene you want but first-"

"Lisbon, if I am still giving off dead-head vibes after we see the crime scene you can drag me to any doctor you want, but right now I must insist that we accept this invitation. You know I am going there one way or another. I know I am going there one way or another. The only difference is whether or not you escort me." His smile was stupidly sweet, almost bovine.

Lisbon stared at him, at his too-black, too-glazed eyes and felt a swell of battling emotions: protectiveness, annoyance, amusement, concern, fear... and some indescribable amalgamation of all of them that managed to become its very own, unpleasant little thing; an emotional bastard borne of tragedy.

"If I take you to the crime scene, you promise to see a doctor after?" She could hear the pleading tone in her own voice and hated it. Jane smiled that dazed, drugged little smile and nodded. Crossed the front of his suit vest with his index finger.

"Cross my heart and hope to die, Lisbon."

Lisbon sighed wearily. "Okay." She pulled back into the road.

"You never did tell me what you are doing out here," Jane said after a moment.

"The crime scene is just outside Santa Monica," Lisbon admitted. "When I couldn't get you by phone this morning... we decided to come out anyway. Given the nature of the crime scene."

"It's... what? A 7 hour drive from Sacramento to Santa Monica? It's..." Jane glanced down at his watch. "Just after 2 p.m. now. So you left at... 7 in the morning?" Jane finished, inclining his head just a bit.

"I was informed of the case when I came in at 9. We tried you for about an hour and then, given the nature of the crime scene, decided to fly out."

Lisbon shot him a look. Usually Jane would have figured that out. The fact that he hadn't was unnerving.

There was another pocket of silence. Lisbon could feel Jane floating on the silence, contemplative, using the silence like an eagle uses air currents to rise higher and higher. The man seemed to soar his way through most conversations and the pauses and quiet spaces that most people used for quiet reflection, Jane used to rise, planning his comments and questions the way chess masters planned their end games. She wasn't even exactly sure how he did it, the small sleights of hand- or rather, tongue- he used in conversations to get his way, only that he was incredibly adept at... rising. She could almost hear the gears turning in his head and glanced over at him.

"Obviously not a coincidence I woke up a stone's throw from the crime scene," Jane finally said, feeling her eyes on him. Whatever smile had been playfully baiting her for the last few minutes was starting to dry up. Lisbon glanced at him, and felt another chill. The ghosts were indeed waking up today.

Lisbon wanted to ask him again if he would see a doctor. She knew that anything they could find relating to drugs in Jane's system or forensic evidence would only help him if his amnesia and proximity to the crime scene came into question. And even as she ran these scenarios through her head, she also knew what Jane had no doubt already figured out. Red John would not be stupid enough to leave drugs in Jane's system, at least not drugs that anyone would think to test for. There would be no forensic evidence Red John didn't want found. Worse, she had no doubt that Jane would make good on his implicit threat to take off and go to the crime scene alone and in his current state, the idea of him being out of her sight for even a few minutes made her feel a little queasy.

Red John had gotten to Jane, knocked him out or otherwise rendered him incapable of fighting back, removed his memory for the hours of the murders and left him in a park in Beverly Hills a good 7 hour drive from his home but only a 30 minute drive from their crime scene.

They had long known Red John was capable of just about anything he put his mind to, but until now he had seemed content to bait Jane and allow himself to be fruitlessly chased. The only times Jane had ever come close to Red John, physically, had been times Jane had intentionally and willfully gone after the man. Never before, since the deaths of Angela and Charlotte, had Red John physically encroached on Jane's territory unprovoked.

Lisbon glanced down at the wolf mask in Jane's hands, the expensive carnival mask with the amber glass-bauble eyes and felt the chills stroke her neck once again. This time she shuddered, and Jane caught her eyes.

"I know," he said, and his voice was unusually soft. "It's eerie, isn't it?"

Lisbon just nodded. What more could she say?

* * *

Lisbon pulled the car to a stop across the street from the little, shuttered bungalow with the yellow crime scene tape and gloomy atmosphere. Jane's eyes were already alight with fascination. Lisbon could remember Jane once asking a group of teens to tell him what animal they would be if they had to be any animal. He had used their responses to learn more about how they viewed themselves in relation to a girl in their social group who had been murdered. At that moment in time, she had contemplated what animal Jane, himself, would be and decided on a fox. Bright, alert, playful, friendly and loyal like a dog, but also stubborn, imperial and regal like a cat. Right now, Jane looked like a fox that had just glimpsed a mouse in a field, eyes zeroed in on the house, body poised to spring out of the car. And yet... he was still. Almost entranced.

Lisbon sighed, glanced back at over at the crime scene. "Jane, it's bad."

Something about her voice broke the trance and he pulled the door release and gracefully bounced out of the passenger seat and onto the macadam. Lisbon huffed and followed after him. She could see Rigsby standing in the yard, and his eyes seemed to swell with relief when he saw Jane. If Jane was a fox, Rigsby was a perpetual boxer puppy. He came towards Jane immediately and ducked under the police tape, reminding Lisbon ever so much of a little boy waiting for his friend on an elementary school playground. Despite herself and the immensity of the situation, she smiled a little, then remembered why she was here, at this location at this moment in time, and the smile dried up so fast it almost hurt.

Not waiting for her, up ahead, Jane was already entering the front door, being swallowed into the house like an insect being sucked up into the body of some giant, loathsome creature. Lisbon picked up her pace. As much as she despised the idea of seeing that crime scene again, the idea of Jane seeing it for the first time without her there, without her nearby for protection, was unthinkable. These thoughts came to Teresa Lisbon subconciously, gracefully firing off in neuronal synapses which pumped her heart a little faster and sent a slightly higher level of adrenaline and cortisol shooting through her veins. At moments in time like this, when she felt Jane was in danger, physically or emotionally or spiritually, her own body became enlivened with hormones and chemicals that likened her, despite her education and upbringing, to a mother bear with a cub in jeopardy. Lisbon flashed her CBI badge as she approached the tape, scowling at the officer for even thinking to question her authority, and charged up the steps and after Jane. He was halfway down that dreaded hall and she knew his eyes were locked on the smiley face taunting them both from the bedroom. His pace had slowed down. He was now approaching the den, the lair of the beast, and he was treading lightly, as if afraid of waking some ancient and profound evil. She fell into step with him and he glanced back at her and for the smallest of seconds he looked like a little boy, terrified and disoriented, a child trapped in the most fiendish of nightmares. That sense of little-boyness was gone as fast as she had seen it, replaced with a veil, with an emotional shield that slid down and over Jane's face and seemed to harden every one of his facial features like a mask. She saw him physically inhale, preparing himself. Others wouldn't have noticed, but Lisbon was so used to Jane's cavalier approach to most crime scenes that even a small change in behavior and body language was profound to her.

He looked back again, as if reasurring himself that she was still there, still following him into Hell.

"I'm right behind you, Jane." She said, softly, and then wondered why she had said it. Obviously, he knew she was there. He nodded, an almost imperceptible nod, and turned back. Crept down the final few inches of hallway and entered the room. She came in behind him, and the room, immediately, felt sour to her. Already the smell of death was profound in the air. She didn't know what properties in the human body were responsible for that smell (Jane had told her once... cadaverenes? Something like that...) and she didn't care. The smell was eerie, the sum total of a life that has been snuffed out and is starting to evaporate like fungal spores, sweet and sour at the same time, noxious... Lisbon did not look at the bed again. She did not want to look at it again. But after a moment she had to, she had to look because she had to keep her eyes on Jane. He was right by the bodies, crouching down, as close to them as he could be.

He was crouching and then rose a bit. Looked at her.

"Has anyone touched the bodies? Crime scene, whoever found them?"

Lisbon shook her head. Nobody had touched them as far as she knew. Jane bent down again. He was touching the child's face. The child's face was pressed to his mother's bosom, nuzzled against her naked, milk-white breast. Jane ever so gently turned the small head, the tiny, cold cheek. Lisbon watched, emotions threatening to overwhelm her. Jane's fingers were prying in the child's mouth, the pale, small lips, the tiny milk teeth... and... and he was pulling something out. A piece of paper... a piece of paper, origami paper it looked like, folded and stuffed in the kid's tiny little mouth like a fortune inside of a fortune cookie...

"It's dry. He must have... blotted up any moisture in the mouth with a towel, a rag, after the boy died and..." Jane trailed off, and unfolded the paper. Stared at the paper as if trying to figure out some extremely complicated cipher.

The words were written in the same hand as the words on the wall and the words on the back of the wolf mask and on the note Jane had already received. He held the note out to Lisbon, and she took it gently.

Scarlet letters screamed up at her: MISS ME?! I'VE MISSED YOU!

She looked back over at Jane. He had his arms wrapped around his middle, as if he was trying to keep his insides from spilling out. Mother bear mode screamed up inside of Lisbon and she suddenly felt like ripping someone limb from limb. Her cub was hurting and someone had to pay. But no one was around who was responsible and so she settled for the next best thing. Trying to shepherd Jane out of the crime scene.

"Jane? Do you need to see... any more?"

He glanced at the bed again. Finally shook his head and walked out of the room. She was glad he was leaving, that she didn't have to play games with him to get him away from this madness, but the look on his face almost physically hurt to witness. He'd entered the demon's lair slowly but he came out at a quick march. Half way down the hall he stopped, glancing around at closed doors.

"Which one is the boy's room?" Jane asked, and didn't wait for a response. He opened a door, found it to be an avocado green bathroom that had last been fashionable in the seventies, then opened the only other door that wasn't an obvious hall closet. A small pine, toddler bed. Duplo blocks and tonka trucks on a woven blue rug. The quilt on the bed was pastel blues and greens with rocket ships and stars. Shelves bolted to the walls, haphazardly stuffed with children's books, a ceramic piggy bank, toy matchbox cars, an ancient "speak n' spell" that had no doubt been liberated from a yard sale by overly enthusiastic parents, what looked like an old sea monkey "aquarium" (Lisbon had owned the exact model as a child, only her's had come with a green lid and the little boy's was red), stuffed animals... Jane froze, then gently reached out and picked up a plush orangutan. Smelled it. He looked very pale.

"Jane?" Lisbon ventured. Jane didn't say anything, just stuck the orangutan doll under his arm and left the room.

"Jane! Wait!" Lisbon called after him. She wasn't even sure if it was okay, him to just... take shit out of the house like this, but nobody stopped him. He spilled himself out of the house at a decent clip, all but running to the car.

Rigsby was still outside. Rigsby had been outside pretty much from the moment they had arrived, keeping watch over the property but not inclined to look at the bloody mess at the end of the hall inside. He hadn't even set foor in the room, had shot a quick look from the doorway and decided enough was enough.

"Boss?" Rigsby said as Lisbon passed him. He wasn't really asking a question, just trying to convey his support, his love, in his usual, clumsy way. She nodded at him. Jane was hurting. He had seen something evil, something meant to torture him and push him ever so slightly closer to the edge of the abyss and it had had its' intended effect.

Lisbon stared after Jane, keeping him in her sights. Tried to decide what to do right now. Rigsby was right. She was the boss. She was meant to lead. They all knew this was Jane's show, but she was the sane one, the controlled one. Rigsby was still looking at her, waiting for instructions, for something to do to make himself useful.

"We're not going to be leaving tonight. Can you get us rooms at a motel?"

He was already nodding, happy to have a task, something concrete to do.

"Where's Cho?" Lisbon snapped after a moment, feeling like a shepherd whose sheep are always getting away.

Rigsby shrugged. "He was here a few minutes ago."

"Find him, will you? Tell him not to wander off like that. Having to track Jane around constantly is bad enough. I don't need to be corralling you two. When you find him I want one of you, I don't care which, to go to a store and get Jane some stuff. Toothbrush, stuff to sleep in, mouthwash, all that stuff. Okay?"

"Got it boss." He was staring at her with questioning eyes, wanting to know why Jane needed toiletries and pyjamas, wanting to know what had *happened* to Jane and where he had been.

"He woke up in a park 30 minutes from here," Lisbon said, trying to ease some of the wild confusion in Rigsby's eyes. "I don't know anything more yet, and neither does Jane. I am going to try and get him to a doctor now. I want somebody to go and speak to whoever found the bodies, get her statement, get a read on her. Oh, and Jane's car is missing, so if you can call Sacramento PD and put out an APB on Jane's car, that would be appreciated." Her voice was slightly sarcastic, and she reigned it in. Stress did that.

Rigsby was nodding, mentally memorizing his tasks.

"His car?"

"Last thing Jane remembers he was driving home. In Sacramento. He has no idea where his car is, so put out a state-wide search. You know the plates, right?"

Rigsby nodded. Lisbon was silent for a moment, running through everything, trying to remember if she was missing anything.

"If they are done with the scene, tell them to check both the victims'.. orifices... for anything. They will anyway during the autopsies. But sooner rather than later?"

"Orifices?" Rigsby looked a little sick. "For...?"

"Whatever. You don't want to know. After they remove the bodies and have what they need, I want people going over the entire house with a fine tooth comb. Look for anything, not just the usual hairs and fibers, I mean, anything out of place. Look through the books. Look at the wallpaper. Look at everything, consider this house a puzzle box."

"Boss?"

"He is playing games with us. More than usual."

Rigsby nodded. Gazed around them like he expected to see aliens suddenly crawling out of the woodworks.

"Keep your phone on. Tell Cho to keep his phone on. I don't need any more stress today." She started to walk away from him, leaving him nodding.

"It'll... it'll be okay, boss." He called after her, before quickly shutting down, looking sheepish. She didn't quite smile at him, but nodded her head, thankful for his efforts.

* * *

Jane was sitting in the passenger seat, already buckled in. Lisbon got in, snapped her safety belt into place.

"I need you to drive me to my house," Jane said simply, looking across at her.

"Jane. You promised. You said you'd see a doctor if I took you to the crime scene."

"I said I'd see a doctor if I was still acting "off", as you so elegantly put it, after seeing the crime scene. Am I still "off", Lisbon?"

She looked at him. Wasn't sure. He smiled at her.

"You're always a little off," she said finally, and huffed. The crazy, wild-eyed stare didn't seem as pronounced now. He reached out, put a hand on her wrist.

"Lisbon, time is of the essence right now. I need to go home... I need you to take me to Malibu."

Lisbon shut her eyes. Mentally counted to ten. Exhaled slowly. Opened her eyes.

"What good will a doctor be in this situation?" Jane asked sensibly. He was holding that damned plush orangutan in his lap.

"It will make me feel better," Lisbon said tiredly.

"I will see a doctor, then. If it will make you feel better." Jane was looking at her wide-eyed. The innocent boy scout.

Lisbon stared at him. Stared at the plush toy in his lap. Silently swore.

"What's with the monkey?"

Jane glanced down. His features became serious again.

"Charlotte... Charlotte had this exact same stuffed animal. She got it in the mail. Day before she died. I didn't remember until I saw it."

Lisbon stared at him, stared at the plush ape.

"You're saying that doll is Charlotte's?" Lisbon's voice was exceptionally soft. Whatever annoyance she felt towards Jane was gone in an instant.

"It's either Charlotte's or one exactly like her's. I want to see if her's is still there." He was looking at Lisbon with giant eyes and she realized the innocent little boy routine wasn't a total act. He did, very much, want to go home. He wanted to see if his murdered daughter's stuffed animal- identical in all respects to the one he was currently holding- was still where he had last left it. Lisbon realized she suddenly wanted to know the answer to that question, too.

"Please, Lisbon."

Lisbon nodded. Jane was right. What good, really, would a doctor be in this situation? Lisbon inserted the keys, started the car.

* * *

Jane was eerily silent as they drove, conscious mind spirited away to a haunted realm where past and present were quickly colliding. Lisbon glanced over at him every few minutes, but other than that kept her eyes on the road. She didn't know what to say to Jane. Every combination of words she ran through the three pound computer behind her eyes sounded strangely glib or callous or woefully juvenile. What did one say to one's colleague and good friend when presented with a situation like this? Words were inadequate.

After ten minutes on the road, Lisbon's cell went off. She pulled it out, flipped it open. It was Rigsby.

"I found Cho. He went for a walk. Said he needed to clear his head," RIgsby said hurriedly. Lisbon scowled into the empty space.

"We got four motel rooms. All on the same floor," Rigsby continued. Lisbon decided now wasn't the time to chew him out about wasting tax payer dollars on seperate rooms.

"Anyway, we're at the dollar store."

"The dollar store?"

"Getting stuff for Jane," Rigsby said, as if it were obvious. "Toothpaste and what have you."

Lisbon rolled her eyes. "You went to the dollar store for that? Couldn't find a drug store? Or a Wal-mart?"

"This is cheaper, and just as good," Rigsby assured her over the line. "Brand names and everything. What sort of toothpaste does Jane use? They've got Aquafresh. They've got Crest..."

Lisbon glanced over at Jane. Despite all that was going on, he looked curious. A little less enthusiastic then usual, but still interested.

"It's Rigsby," Lisbon said, handing Jane the phone. "He... here, you talk to him."

Jane took the phone. Listened. Made a face.

"No. No. I do not use flouridated toothpaste," Jane said, surprising Lisbon. She had expected him to be more withdrawn right now. He still wasn't his usual playful self, but at least he was paying attention. There was another pause.

"Because flouride is carcinogenic and neurotoxic. It is banned in over 98% of Europe for a reason, Rigsby."

A pause. Jane was smiling. A sharky smile.

"Yes, and I am sure your dentist is a very nice man, and if he wants to use flouride I won't say boo, but I am not brushing my teeth with it."

The smile was growing wider. Lisbon had a sudden mental image of Rigsby and Cho in some overcrowded dollar store with one of those little plastic shopping baskets looking for toiletries for Jane and had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.

"Where do I get my toothpaste from? Usually Wholefoods," Jane said conversationally. He glanced over at Lisbon and rolled his eyes theatrically. Lisbon shot him a look.

"Yeah, any brand that doesn't have flouride, I'll use right now...and gluten-free toothpaste, I'm doing that now... yes, that's it. I am not going to make you jump through hoops on my account... what?" Jane had cocked his head. "No, I don't have any cavities. Not since I was 13 or so." Jane was quiet for a moment. Then he laughed.

"They're not actually all silver. They're amalgam... Silver and mercury, Rigsby... Yes... I know mercury is toxic," Jane's voice was amused. He lowered the phone an inch and smiled over at Lisbon. "Lisbon! Rigsby didn't know there was mercury in silver fillings!"

"I don't want to get involved in this," Lisbon said, keeping her eyes on the road. It occured to her that Rigsby might have phoned to distract Jane, and if that was the case, she would have to buy him a steak dinner. Of course, the idea that he really was at a dollar store, shopping for toothpaste and disposable razors was equally likely.

"Yes, Rigsby, mouthwash can have flouride in it, too, you're going to have to read the small print... what do you mean, you can't read the small print, you are a field agent... then get Cho to read it for you... yes, sodium flouride is the same thing... yeah, I don't care if it's only a little tiny bit...yeah... well, maybe I will just buy my own hygiene products..."

Lisbon reached over, flapped her fingers for the phone.

"I have to go, Rigsby, Lisbon wants to talk to you now," Jane said pleasantly, and passed her the phone. Lisbon took it.

"Why are you arguing with him? Just go to a health food store or Wholefoods or whatever and get flouride free stuff and gluten-free and not-tested-on-animals and... the health food store will know, just explain you are buying for someone very picky and very health conscious... well, then get whatever is most expensive..."

"I like cinnamon flavoured dental floss," Jane said, voice rising just enough to ensure Rigsby heard it. Lisbon shot him an exasperated look.

"Yes, just do the best you can. Yeah... thanks. Bye." Lisbon disconnected, returned her cell phone to her pocket. After a moment she glanced over at Jane.

"You're a brat."

Jane grinned back. Holding the orangutan doll in his hands, he looked surprisingly like a little kid.

"Gluten-free toothpaste, Jane? You were eating a bearclaw less than an hour and a half ago."

"I wasn't in my right mind, Lisbon." Jane said. She could hear the amusement in his voice. He knew he was bugging her, and he loved it. She supposed, considering everything that was going on, that Jane needed to poke her buttons more than usual. But it was still annoying.

"I'm ignoring you now," Lisbon said, turning her attention once more to the road. They were still a good 15 minutes from Jane's house and the memories associated with the place would no doubt dull Jane's playful spirit soon enough.

* * *

**Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 3:13 P.M. P.S.T.**

Jane was out of the passenger seat before Lisbon had brought the car to a complete stop. Lisbon followed suit and ran behind him as he took the front stairs two at a time. When he got to the front door he realized he didn't have the keys and came back off the porch as fast as he had gone up, walked along the weedy flower bed and and crouched in front of a stone frog, a large one with a giant, gaping mouth. It was attached to a dish and obviously meant to be a fountain. Jane curled his fingers up inside the stone mouth and dug around for a few seconds before pulling out a small house key. As quickly as he had retrieved the key he was back up the steps and unlocking the front door. the orangutan plush dangling in his left hand.

The house smelled surprisingly unstuffy. Jane seemed to know what Lisbon was thinking because he shrugged and said: "I have someone come and clean once a month. To keep the dust at a minimum."

Lisbon nodded and followed Jane as he mounted the first set of steps. The hallway on the second storey ran straight ahead (that way lead to the master bedroom and Charlie's bedroom), but also right (the bathroom and some other room Lisbon had never inquired about) and left. Jane turned was a door at the end of the hall which he promptly opened and inside, a set ot stairs, presumably leading to the attic.

The attic, like the rest of the house, was spotless. The floors were polished hardwood, the walls were stone.

"Your attic is nicer than my apartment," Lisbon said softly. Jane smiled back.

"We were going to turn this into a playroom..." His voice was distracted as he walked to a stack of some dozen odd cardboard boxes, labelled and dated. He pulled out an exceptionally large box which had originally stored a mini fridge with the words "Charlie-stuffed animals-2003" written in neat printing on the side and used the end of his house key to cut through the packing tape. Very gently he lifted the edges and began to pull out stuffed animals and dolls, his hands clasping first on an American Girl doll with blond ringlets and blue eyes. Lisbon watched as he carefully placed the doll on the attic floor with the utmost of care. She'd personally seen new parents treat newborn babies with less care. Next came four troll dolls with enchanting faces that were obviously not cheap plastic chinese knock-offs (no doubt these troll dolls were from Denmark and cost a good whack of money each), then a plush unicorn that looked like it had cost an arm and a leg, if not a small country. Jane blinked and made a noise of interest, and then carefully pulled out what he had been looking for. He was holding a stuffed orangutan with glass bead eyes and copper fur that was an identical brother to the one he had dragged out of the crime scene. He even double checked the tags. Both toys were made from a company called Hansa.

"What are the odds they both would have the same plush toy?"

Lisbon just looked at him. Jane's eyes darted back and forth between the stuffed animals, trying to suss out any differences.

"Lisbon? You have a knife on you?"

"A knife?"

"Yeah, a pocket knife or anything?"

"I don't carry knives on me, Jane."

Jane nodded, picked up the orangutan he'd "borrowed" from the crime scene, turned it upside down and bit into the fabric with his teeth. Yanked hard. The toy didn't rip.

"We might need a knife... this is too well made." He was already up, looking through the boxes. He made a pleased little cooing noise and returned with a box cutter. He expertly slit the toy between the legs and up the back, began to pull out the stuffing. Lisbon watched him silently. She knew better than to question his instincts. Then he found what he was looking for and pulled out a CD in a plastic protective case. There was no writing on the CD.

There didn't need to be.

They both knew who the CD was from.

* * *

"Jane, wait!" he had the CD and was half-walking, half-running out of the attic. He'd left the plush orangutan from the crime scene on the floor, leaking stuffing all over the hardwood, but had grabbed his late daughter's in its place and Lisbon could hear him on the stairs.

"Jane!" She followed after him, not-quite-but-almost-running and caught sight of him again just as the front door of the house began to close. Jane wasn't waiting for her to catch up, which was silly, because she had the car keys and he needed to lock up. He was already in the car, waiting for her to return, to start the car so he could use the car's built in CD player. Lisbon sighed, carefully shut the door and walked slowly over to the car. She got into the driver's seat and looked over at Jane.

"Where are the car keys?" Jane said. He wasn't quite manic but his cheeks looked flushed. Lisbon found herself feeling suddenly more worried for her colleague than she had all day.

"Jane," she kept her voice as calm as she could. "We don't know what is on that CD."

"It's a message from Red John," Jane said, exasperated, and held out his hand for the car keys again.

"Yes, but... we don't know what kind of message. Maybe we should wait before listening to it."

"Lisbon? The keys?"

"Jane, slow down. This all feels off to me."

That seemed to bring him up short.

"Red John isn't usually so secretive with his messages. He is more theatrical than this. This feels like...well, not like Red John to me," Lisbon said slowly. She felt uneasy, had felt uneasy all day, ever since she'd gone in to work and learned Jane was missing. Then the crime scene. Now, these weird bread-crumb-like clues scattered throughout the day, planted ever so carefully for Jane and Jane alone to find.

"What are you saying, Lisbon?"

"We should wait to listen to that. We don't know what's on it."

"That's precisely why we should listen to it right now," Jane said. He still had his hand out for the keys.

Lisbon sighed. Knew Jane would keep pressing the issue. Finally forced herself to speak.

"Jane, does this... _all of this_... feel like Red John to you?"

"Of course it's Red John. That crime scene was classic Red John."

"The crime scene, yes. The murders, yes. No question. But this CD, hidden in a stuffed animal in a dead little boy's room that just happens to be an identical replica of...of..." Lisbon trailed.

"Lisbon? What are you getting at?" Jane's usual playful tone was gone. He was thoroughly impatient now. On edge. She could see it in his eyes, in the colour riding high in his cheeks. She knew, without asking him, that he could feel it too. Something about this entire day and the crime scene and this anniversary was wrong. Was different, and wrong and _off_. It was hard to put into words, though. Lisbon felt like she had as a child, when she had tried to keep a dream journal. Invariably she'd wait too long every morning before sitting down to record the dreams, and by then they had floated apart like clouds and had been reabsorbed back into her subconscious, leaving only a trace of the emotions they had originally elicited. This time, the feelings and thoughts she was searching for were equally hazy and indistinct, but instead of beautiful dreams, what lurked in her subconscious were monstrosities. From the look of Jane, something similar was bothering him, some similar sense of this entire day being fundamentally different, fundamentally unstable.

"Jane, the little boy at the crime scene... his face was turned into his mother's breast." It wasn't a question, but it had nagged at her. If that crime scene had been a recreation of Jane's family's murders then... Lisbon waited for Jane to follow her logic. Asked him with his eyes to please slow down, but he no doubt had already thought these thoughts. For a second she saw a burst of panic, unrestrained, in his eyes and just as quickly Jane got control of himself back.

"I buried my daughter, Lisbon." He said, and his voice had a shrillness to it she had never heard before. He wasn't yelling, he was outwardly very calm (perhaps a bit too calm) but she could see he was ready to flip out.

"Did you see Charlotte's face?"

Jane blinked heavily and she saw him running back through the years; and there it was again, that little sliver of panic knifing it's way through his body, reflected in his eyes.

"It was Angela. It _was_ Charlotte."

"You saw her face, Jane? _Clearly_?"

"I know my own daughter, Lisbon." His voice was resolute but that panic in his eyes was back and growing, like a fire spreading out of control. Lisbon considered his words, didn't bother pointing out he had had used the word "know" instead of "knew". Present tense.

Lisbon took a deep breath.

"Jane, you would have been in shock. This is Red John we're talking about! You told me yourself you had been drinking that night and had spaced on the time. When you entered that room you would have seen Angela, but not necessarily Charlotte's face... not if she was positioned like the little boy I saw earlier today. I am not saying you didn't bury Charlotte, but partially drunk and in shock..."

"Then what are you saying, Lisbon?" Haunted eyes gazed back at her, full of screams and tears and pain. So much sound in those eyes, so much movement and noise.

"Maybe Red John wants you to think Charlotte is still alive? To mess with you? I don't know, why does he do any of the sadistic things he does? When you buried Charlotte, was it an open casket funeral? Did you see her face at the funeral?" Lisbon had never asked. Had never seen any use in asking but now she realized just how important that question was.

"Shut up, Lisbon." Jane said, and it was totally unlike him to tell her to shut up. His voice was the voice of someone who is eerily outwardly calm because inside, they feel like everything is falling apart.

Jane was staring at her, nothing impish or playful left in his features. He looked ancient, drained of all his vitality. Also, at the same time, filled with adrenaline. Lisbon had a sudden sure thought that if she upset him any more Jane might just take off with his CD and his sadness to listen to it somewhere else, just take off at a sprint if he needed to, just to get away, just to do something with his body. He was still outwardly composed, but she could see he was breathing slightly faster than normal, his eyes were deep pools of uncertainty, alive and glassy with fear.

"We should have someone check the CD for prints, Jane. You know we should."

"Red John wouldn't leave any prints."

"Not Red John's prints, then? We should check first. This is unlike him, you have to admit that. He's never done this before." Lisbon sighed and searched out Jane's eyes. "Jane, please. We can't be too careful right now."

Jane looked down at the CD he was holding. His body held a slight tremor, almost invisible, but Lisbon could feel it coming off of him like she had been able to feel the power radiating off the electrified fence at her Uncle's cattle ranch as a kid. The air around Jane seemed charged, alive, ready to snap and pop.

"Jane, please let's do this by the book this time." Her eyes were full of pleading. Maybe it was his own fear of what the CD contained, or his fear at having been so recently abducted and moved across the state like a plaything. Maybe it was the profound realization that his family had been dead a decade and he was still nowhere closer to catching the monster called Red John. Whatever it was, Jane let out a sharp exhale and nodded, got back into the passenger seat.

Lisbon got in and looked over at him. "I think you need to lock the front door before we leave."

Jane glanced at the house, looked indifferent. Finally nodded and got out of the car and walked back up to the front door. Lisbon watched him lock the door, stop, check to make sure it was locked by tugging on the knob. He went and carefully returned the key to its resting spot, hidden inside the lip of the stone frog's huge, gaping mouth.

Jane came back towards the rental car then, walking rigidly, reminding Lisbon ever so slightly of a wind-up tin soldier. His head hung, his eyes were lost and searching, haunted. She watched him and thought, not for the first time, about the evil Red John had inflicted on her friend, the evil that he was in general, spreading from life to life like a virus.

"We'll get him Jane," Lisbon said gently into the empty silence of the rental car, watching Jane return so solemnly, looking so drained.

_We'll get you, you son of a bitch._

* * *

Because they were staying close to the local crime scene, Rigsby and Cho had commandeered use of a local police station's "tech" lab. They had met Jane and Lisbon at the motel and spirited the CD away for fingerprint analysis several hours ago.

Jane was lying on the bed in what he had obviously already decided was "his" motel room. He'd taken off his outer suit jacket and draped it over his face like an eye mask, nose and mouth still exposed. After more than an hour of alternating between watching him "rest" and flipping through the stations on the little television in Jane's room, Lisbon had decided to go to her room and get some rest, too. The day and the grisly sights contained within had drained her as severely and physically as any antiquated bloodletting. She had arranged herself on top of her bed and was just getting comfortable and starting to drift into sleep when her cell phone rang out. The effect was like being hit in the heart with adrenaline. Lisbon was up immediately, had the phone out, was listening for news.

"Uh, Boss?" It was Rigsby. He sounded shaky, uneasy. Terribly uneasy.

"Rigsby? What is it?" She didn't bother with formalities at the best of times, and definitely wasn't going to start now.

"Where is Jane? Is he with you?" Rigsby asked tightly. Lisbon's heart sped up a good 30 beats a minute.

"He's in his motel room taking a nap," Lisbon said, and her words sounded so flat and dry and calm despite her emotions that she wanted to laugh at them.

"Okay. That's probably good. We got the fingerprint analysis back on the CD you and Jane found."

"You found prints? And they matched to someone in the system?" Lisbon prodded.

"Uh... not at first. I don't know how to say this, Boss, so I am just going to say it. The prints we found on the CD, inside the case? Outside of the case was clean, no prints besides Jane's and your's. Which makes sense, as you guys both touched it. Inside, on the actual CD though? This is so weird, boss, and I know he is messing with us so maybe we shouldn't tell Jane right away-"

"Rigsby, whose prints did you find?" Lisbon prodded impatiently. But she already knew in her gut.

"The lab tech says the prints belong to Charlotte... Jane's kid." Rigsby said this quickly, like a little kid who is being pressed for information by the principal and knows he has no choice but to speak. Lisbon felt her heart skip a beat at his words, an electric trill of horror shot through her like lightning. She couldn't speak. Then, she could speak.

"Charlotte? Are you sure?"

"We triple-checked, Boss. And before you ask, Charlotte was finger-printed in nursery school as part of a missing kid prevention program or something. I don't know if Jane even knows about it, the signature on the permission slip was Angela's..."

"And Boss? The scary part?" Rigsby's voice had fallen in volume, as if what he was about to say was scaring him badly. Lisbon didn't say anything.

"The fingerprints are larger than the ones from the nursery school program. Same prints, but larger fingers."

When Lisbon spoke it was only to swear lightly. Rigsby ignored it.

"Did you listen to the CD?" She already knew that they would have.

"Uh... that is audiotape of a young child, aged 4 to 6 according to the techs here, female, just talking. My guess is..."

"Yeahm" Lisbon rubbed at her eyes. She felt like she was dreaming. Maybe she was dreaming? God, she hoped so.

"Do I want to know what the child on that recording is talking about?"

"Uh... Boss? The kid... the little girl? This is fucked up. I mean..." Rigsby's voice had a tremor in it now, an honest-to-God tremor. "She is asking questions about death, about murder, all sorts of weird shit like that but the voice that is answering her... the voice that is answering her..."

Lisbon's blood ran in waves of hot and then freezing cold. She'd remembered her maternal grandmother telling her as a little girl that evil felt cold, not hot, that if Hell was real it was probably frigid and icy. That grandmother had been a spiritualist and an eccentric. She'd said when evil energies were present- dark spirits or vengeful ghosts- the air in a room could suddenly get cold spots. Lisbon had been fascinated as a little girl and had, over time, come to believe her grandmother had been suffering from some sort of dementia with psychotic overtones. But now, right now, the air she was standing in felt cold, alarmingly cold, as if something was sucking the energy right out of the atoms all around her.

"On the CD there are two voices. One is a little girl's. The other one belongs to..." Rigsby was trying to get the words out but he seemed unable to do manage it. Lisbon helped him.

"The other voice is Red John's." Lisbon finished for him. She could see his face, could imagine what he looked like right now: confused and scared, bewildered and guilty. Guilty that he was the one having to bring this information to her.

"Y-yeah."

* * *

-Chapter End- Please review.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title:** Charlotte's Web (Chapter Four) by Lexikal  
**Rating:** M for graphic violence and language  
**Fandom:** The Mentalist  
**Summary:** Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.

**Author's Note: **Here is chapter four, guys. Thanks for the reviews, you guys are awesome! My computer has been having some problems lately.. hopefully I can get a new one soon.

* * *

"The craftiest trickery are too short and ragged a cloak to cover a bad heart." - Johann Kaspar Lavater

"I believe that if I should die, and you were to walk near my grave, from the very depths of earth I would hear your footsteps." - Benito Perez Galdos

* * *

**Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 6:43 P.M. P.S.T.**

She watched him sleep. She watched the slow rise and fall of his chest under his suit vest, watched the way his fingers interlaced as he "rested". The suit jacket was still sprawled over his eyes. She'd never had to deliver more profound news to anyone in her entire life and the profundity of the situation was paralyzing. She was all too deeply aware that she couldn't keep this from him and she also knew it would be best if the news came from her, but she knew that this news would be something akin to a death. Except worse. Sadistic murder was bad enough, but this torture Red John had rigged up was almost artistic in its increasing levels of intellectual sadism.

How would Jane tell her something like this, if their situations were reversed? No doubt he would try to make her feel safe, would use his best hypnotic voice to break the news. But really? How did one relay to another human being a reality like this, something created by a mastermind of torture? In his own way, Red John was also torturing her by condemning her to having to be the one to give him this news. Jane would never be the same after this news, and she would be the one to deliver the news to him that would mark the beginning of his "new life". Lisbon knew Red John couldn't have planned how, exactly, Jane would find this out, how he would discover the truth of his daughter's continued existence, and yet, she felt herself unduly certain that in his brilliant, depraved way he had somehow *known* she would be the one set up by fate and time to deliver this information to Jane.

She hated him. She hated Red John, but she also feared him. Did his depravity ever stop? Or was it infinite?

Lisbon continued to watch Jane, then reached out, and took hold of one of his hands. Warm and dry and Jane. She had a sudden, strong urge to kiss his hand, but couldn't. She could feel his pulse in his wrist as he slept. He began to stir then, a slight moan and she released his hand. He batted his suit jacket off his face and squeezed his eyelids together tightly, blinked up at her. He was still disoriented by sleep.

"L-Lisbon?" He sat up and rubbed at his eyes, scratched the side of his cheek, his jaw. Looked around and seemed to remember where he was.

"How are you feeling?" It was a stupid question, really, but Lisbon felt herself saying these words. Jane blinked again and gazed around the motel room.

"How long have I been sleeping?"

"A few hours..."

She could see the gears turning in his head as he ran back through the events of the day.

"The CD? Did they find any prints?" His voice was instantly urgent as the pieces started to fall into place again, as reality shifted back into a coherent, linear fabric stretched across space and time.

Moment of truth. How did one ever face the huge moments in life like this? Simple. One faced them.

"Jane, when Charlotte was little... was she ever fingerprinted as part of a child safety program?"

It took half a second but Jane's face changed. It was different. She could see that he knew the implications of what she was asking. She realized too late that her own phrasing of the question gave everything away. She had said "when Charlotte was little" not "was Charlotte ever", and the phrasing was important. People did not talk of a child who had been murdered in the present tense, not with a sense of passing time. Referring to Charlotte as "little" would tell Jane everything. Someone murdered at 5 years of age was *always* little, their existence ended at "little", there was no need to specify "little". You only specified a time in someone's life when they were "little" if that person had continued to grow up, if there was a "bigness" to compare the "little" to...

She could see him visibly swallow. His eyes looked blazed with too much information, not even horrified, just overloaded. He blinked hard.

"Lisbon? Whose fingerprints were on the CD?"

A direct question required a direct answer.

"Rigsby phoned. They triple checked..." She was trailing. Jane was already up, shrugging into his suit jacket, half pacing, half-marching.

"Whose fingerprints, Lisbon?"

"They got back... apparently the prints match those found in the database... they match the fingerprints that are in the database as Charlotte's."

Jane had known this was coming, but the cognitive dissonance was still enormous. He stopped pacing and just stared at her. In his eyes, Lisbon could imagine the sorrow and grief and bewilderment of humans all throughout evolution. She could picture the eyes of a Viking returning home to find his family slaughtered. The horror and fear in the eyes of the first Gladiator who ever found his death at the jaws of a lion. She could picture the sorrowful eyes of the earliest of humans, just starting to feel grief, pushing and rocking the corpses of their loved ones to see if they will move again... words could not describe the slow dawning awareness in Jane's eyes. The English language did not have words that qualified as descriptors.

After a space of time that was infinitely longer than the five seconds it had played itself out in, Jane swallowed again and found his words.

"Did they listen to the CD? Did they listen to it?"

"Rigsby said that the CD contained an exchange between a little girl and a man... they are having a conversation about various topics..."

Now the horror was starting to dawn in Jane's eyes. The emotions were catching up with the information.

"A little girl," Jane said, but it was not a question. He simply said it. Then his body was moving towards the motel room door and Lisbon was moving after him. They did not have to speak. It was obvious where Jane wanted to go and what he wanted to do, what he *needed* to hear and do. Lisbon followed him out to her rental car and got in the driver's seat, reached over and unlocked his door and started the car. The sense of unreality hanging over this day was enormous, almost psychedelic.

* * *

**Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 7:12 P.M. P.S.T. **

Rigsby was waiting for them in the Santa Monica PD tech lab he had taken over with Cho. The room was fairly large with multiple computer terminals, a large conference table (covered with boxes filled with files) and extraneous electronic hardware that Lisbon couldn't name. The lights were off, the only light in the room coming from the computer screens. Cho was waiting in the hall for them, stern as ever, and he passed Lisbon a knowing look as he met her eyes. His eyes were shields, unreadable.

"Did you listen to it, Cho?" Jane asked, meeting the shorter man's eyes.

"I did."

"Is it Red John's voice?"

"You need to listen to it."

With that, Cho stepped to the side and opened the door. Jane slipped inside, as did Lisbon. Cho remained outside the door, as a guard presumably. Rigsby and Van Pelt were bent over one of the computers and looked up at the arrival.

"Guys... over here." Rigsby said unnecessarily.

When Lisbon was closer she could see Rigsby dart a nervous glance at Jane. Jane's eyes were focused on the computer screen. There was a program up that analyzed sound waves, consisting of various digital dials and buttons and two large black rectangles filled with a ragged, spiky line which represented all the sounds on the CD. The program was paused. The CD was paused.

Rigsby darted a look at Lisbon, then Jane.

"Play it, Van Pelt," Jane ordered. His voice seemed devoid of any emotion. Van Pelt darted a look at Lisbon. She nodded, just slightly. There was no way to shield Jane from this.

"Maybe you'd like a chair?" Van Pelt asked softly, eyes meeting Jane's.

"Play the CD, please." Jane repeated. She sighed. Nodded. Clicked the mouse and started the software.

At first there was just slight background noise. Then, suddenly, like the birth of the universe, there was talking.

* * *

_"I want to see my daddy," the little girl's voice was high-pitched, uncertain. Not scared, but not at ease._

_"You can't do that. Not for a long time. Maybe not ever. Your daddy has given you to me." The man was smooth, mock-concerned._

_"No, he didn't. He wouldn't do that. You're lying."_

_"He did. You've been to school, right, Charlotte?" The man's voice lilted._

_The child said something. It was too low for the recording to make any sense of it and the high peaks and valleys on the software plummeted and flatlined for a second, then peaked up again._

_"This is like school. But for very special children. For very bright children. For children destined to change the world."_

_"I want to see my daddy!" The child's voice rose with emotion. "I want to see my mommy!"_

_"Your mommy died. I told you that already. And your daddy... he doesn't want to see you. He wants you to learn. He wants you to change the world."_

_"You're a liar!" The voice peaked into hysteria. "You're a liar! You're a liar!" The child's voice cut off into garbled screams, and then tears. Sobbing. Then, silence on the CD. _

_Then, the man said: "Crying won't change reality, Charlotte."_

_Five seconds of silence, then._

_When the voices started again, the little girl was laughing. _

_"What's so funny?" The man asked. This recording was from a different point in time. Recorded at a later date, and copied to the CD._

_"You are, Uncle John!" The child was older now, maybe eight. Maybe nine._

_"And why am I funny?"_

_"I am too young to kill somebody. You have to do it."_

_"But you'll watch, won't you, Charlotte? You want to watch? You want to learn?"_

_"I want to learn," the child said solemnly._

* * *

"Turn it off," Jane's voice cracked. Van Pelt paused the recording immediately. Lisbon's eyes had been focused on the screen, mesmerized by the electronic rise and fall of the image of the sound waves that represented the voices. Horrified. Mystified. When Jane spoke, Lisbon turned immediately to him.

Jane was very pale. Even in the blue light from the computer monitor, she could tell that he was pale. In the blue light, his pupils seemed to have blacked out all the colour in his eyes.

Lisbon immediately got a chair and steered Jane into it. He let her guide him to it, eyes still focused on the computer screen.

"Jane, look at me," Lisbon said. He didn't. His eyes remained locked on the spiky green line glowing from the screen, representing voices. Representing Red John's voice. Representing his daughter's voice.

"Jane, please look at me," Lisbon repeated again, crouching down in front of him. Finally, he met her eyes.

"Charlotte's alive, Lisbon. That was... that _is_ her voice. I know her voice. Charlotte is alive!" His voice shook, flooded with adrenaline. The dazed look he'd had earlier was now back, only substantially more pronounced. He was in shock.

"Are you sure, Jane?" She tried to keep her voice calm, tried to ground him. Lisbon suddenly thought that maybe Red John's angle wasn't to torture Jane, exactly, but to drive him completely out of his mind. He blinked hard, as if trying to awaken from a horrible nightmare.

"I know my own daughter's voice! And the fingerprints? Rigsby... you said they matched? Van Pelt?" Jane's head whipped from one colleague to the other, seeking them out. They couldn't lie to him, and he knew that.

"Uh... they matched prints taken at Charlotte's nursery school back in 2002," Rigsby said worriedly, risking a worried glance at Lisbon. Lisbon searched the wall, flicked the lights on and came back to Jane.

He was still staring at the damned computer screen. Lisbon suddenly remembered Jane telling her about his time on a locked psychiatric ward after the murders. He'd lost it. He'd had a breakdown. Lisbon didn't know all the details, only that he'd hit rock bottom. The knowledge that a serial killer had murdered your family because you had mocked and degraded them on national television would be enough to push most people over the edge for the rest of their lives, but the idea that one's child hadn't actually been killed but spirited away and raised by that serial killer? Lisbon felt physically sick trying to imagine what that knowledge would to do Jane.

He was still staring at the computer screen, glassy eyed. Lisbon felt a chill run through her. He looked hypnotized. Or maybe Red John had finally succeeded, and managed to push Jane into the abyss? Managed to finally drive Jane into madness? No. She wouldn't let him do that.

Fuck Red John.

Lisbon glanced over at Rigsby and Van Pelt.

"Can you give us a moment alone?" She sounded unduly cold. The enormity of her hatred for Red John was so huge it had coloured everything. Rigsby pursed his lips and darted a sadly guilty look at Jane, his eyes wounded and scared for the colleague that had come to be a friend. He nodded and quickly hurried himself out of the room, followed by Van Pelt.

The door slid shut, with a careful, gentle click.

"Jane. Please look at me. You're scaring me."

He continued to stare. Fianlly blinked. Turned anciently sorrowful eyes to her.

"He is trying to drive you crazy, Jane. You have to know that."

Jane stared at her. Finally his eyes drifted back to the computer screen, as if drawn by some unseen force.

"I need to listen to this alone, now, Lisbon. Thank you." His voice was so damned mechanical and flat. Eerie.

"Jane. If you lose it, Red John wins. And if that really is Charlotte on that recording? And this is not just an incredibly sadistic mind game? Who is going to help Charlotte, if you go crazy?"

That seemed to reach him. He blinked. Reached forward. Palmed his eyes. Made a high pitched little noise that was something between a scream and a laugh. His shoulders were shuddering.

"Jane...please look at me. Talk to me?"

He removed his hands from his eyes and sought her out again.

"I have spent the last ten years thinking she was dead, and all this time he had her, he was... _erasing_ her and rebuilding something else, he was..."

"If Charlotte is still alive, we will get her back and you will help her. You will save her, Jane. You are better than him."

Jane let out a raspy exhalation.

"I don't know if I can do that Lisbon. Red John... he is too powerful. He has people in power all over. Who is to say anything we uncover will be real? We test some young woman's blood and who is to say the person doing the DNA test isn't working for Red John, or we dig up... we exhume the bodies... we exhume Charlotte's grave, or the child I thought was Charlotte... and who is to say the people who compare the dental records aren't working for Red John, too? I don't think I'll ever know, not for _sure_, and..."

"You will know your own daughter, Jane. You will see her._ And you will know._ Red John can't take that away."

"I think, maybe, he can, Lisbon. _I_ thought she was dead," Jane said. She had never heard him sound this deflated, this defeated. She had seen him fake a break down before, fake emotions to manipulate suspects, but this was different. This was eerily final, his mannerism, his tone. If he lost it now, if he went crazy now...

"And if you are wrong? If he drives you to madness now and you give up now, and Charlotte is still alive? And counting on you? Jane... if you feel like you are going crazy, like there is no solid ground... imagine what she must feel like," Lisbon said. Jane turned horrified eyes to her. Eyes that told her, in that moment, that he would continue to fight. He nodded, just a little bit, a faint nod.

"I don't know what to do right now, Lisbon. I... where do I start?" Jane palmed his eyes again. Rubbed them. He sounded like a lost child and she had the sudden, impulsive urge to hug him, to wrap him in her arms and pull him close, shield him. But she couldn't shield him from reality.

"All we are is what we think, Jane. You taught me that. What we think _is_ reality, and whoever is the most skilled in manipulating our thoughts controls reality. The only reason I can see for Red John targeting you like this is that he sees something in you that threatens him, but which he also views as valuable. Otherwise he would just kill you. The fact that you're still alive tells me he views you as a worthy opponent, and if you are a worthy opponent that means that you can beat him. That means he is human, and it means he has weaknesses."

Jane said nothing. Finally nodded. Turned his eyes back to the screen.

"I need to listen to this, Lisbon. I need to listen to all of this."

"Okay," Lisbon said.

"I need to be alone," Jane said softly.

"No. Jane, you can listen to it. But you will not be alone. I am not leaving you."

"Lisbon..."

"No," Lisbon said forcefully. Jane's eyes flickered back and forth, over her face. Finally he nodded. Leaned forward and hit a key on the mouse, restarting the recording. Voices filled the room once again, and what they were saying was the stuff of nightmares.

* * *

**Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 7:48 P.M. P.S.T.**

The door clicked open. Even the click sounded subdued and tired. Lisbon appeared and Rigsby was there, waiting for her. He met her eyes. Lisbon suddenly realized how protective Rigsby was, how mortal, how sadly, pathetically human and the emotional realization of this made her feel like sobbing. She had never felt as protective towards him as she had that moment, seeing him waiting in that police hallway with worried, scared eyes, ready to jump to work at her command. The idea that so many humans were controlled and manipulated like playthings by sociopaths made Lisbon feel suddenly like crying even harder. God help them all. Jane was still in the tech lab, white with shock, eyes anguished, not yet ready to face the others.

"Boss?" Rigsby asked uncertainly, darting a quick look from Lisbon to the door, to the person he knew was suffering greatly behind that door.

"He needs a minute alone, Wayne."

"What should I do?" Rigsby asked. He needed to do something. He needed to be useful.

"Any word on Jane's car yet?" Lisbon asked. Cho was walking towards them now, carrying coffee in styrofoam cups. He handed both cups to Lisbon.

"I, uh... you two. I want you to go and interview whoever found the bodies. Get the interview on film, so Jane can look at it later. I want somebody to contact the Malibu police. We are going to have to have to exhume... Angela and Charlotte Ruskin-Jane as soon as possible and I want that scene secure for obvious reasons. I want one of you, at the very least, at the exhumation watching the entire time and someone with the corpses the entire time. We need to compare the dental patterns to the dental records and make sure they match. I need Van Pelt here, we need some age progression photos of Charlotte, and we are going to need to put them on the local news with an amber alert and information about the Ruskin-Jane case. Jane... Jane says he wants to go on TV. Address the public. Address... Charlotte. So I need somebody to set that up with the press and alert CBI in Sacramento about developments in this case and alert Santa Monica police about a press release pertaining to these latest Red John murders, make sure they are kept up to speed and we have all our ducks in a row. Jane wants to get Charlotte's image out everywhere so I need one of you to find Van Pelt and send her back here now. Jane and I are going to be here for a while, working with Van Pelt and he hasn't eaten all day, so if somebody can order in some food that would be nice. Both of you, keep your phones on. Whoever is going back to Malibu to oversee the exhumations is going to want to take a taxi to the airport now. Phones are kept on. That's not a request. That's all for now."

Rigsby nodded and glanced back at the closed door again. She knew he wanted her to say something.

"We need to find Charlotte," Lisbon said softly, eyes hard and determined as she met both Cho and Rigsby in turn. Cho looked stern and serious as always, but she could see anger in his eyes, anger about what had been done to Jane and Jane's family. Rigsby still looked terribly protective and sad.

"I'm going back in to Jane now," Lisbon said, turning away from them. Rigsby opened the door for her, waited till she was through it, before gently closing it behind her. Cho was already walking away, ready to carry out orders. Rigsby stared at the door for a moment, frowned, and followed after Cho.

* * *

**Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 9:03 P.M. P.S.T.**

Jane was standing in front of the Santa Monica police department, Lisbon to his left, Rigsby to his right, facing the wall of reporters. The local police chief was standing next to Lisbon and a baby-faced officer was standing off to the side. The more, the merrier. There were several spotlights on, illuminating the law enforcement officials. Jane was given the cue, the cue to start talking. Cameras were rolling.

"My name is Patrick Jane. I am a criminal behavioral consultant for the CBI, the California Bureau of Investigation. For the last ten years, I have been helping the CBI track the movements of a serial killer at work here in California. This serial killer goes by the name Red John. His crimes have been widely publicized so that moniker no doubt sounds familiar to many of you. He is a man unparalleled in his ruthlessness, his trickery and his ability to manipulate the behavior of the human beings he views as playthings," Jane said. His eyes burned into the cameras. Flashbulbs went off as photos were taken.

"I was a private consultant for the police previous to my work with the CBI. I became an employee of the CBI in the first quarter of 2004, after Red John killed my wife and daughter for what he viewed as slander. I referred to him in a manner he viewed as distasteful, and he retaliated by killing my wife and daughter. I found their bodies in the early morning hours of October 30th, 2003. From that moment forward I have lived my life knowing that I was responsible for their deaths. The capture of Red John has since become something of an obsession for me, both personally and professionally."

Jane stared into the camera, giving the news stations time to flash photographs of Angela, of a baby-faced 5 year-old named Charlotte Ruskin-Jane holding up a set of Lego in her pyjamas.

"I found my wife and daughter in the early morning hours, after they were killed. Red John had... slit their backs open and posthumously pulled their lungs out of these slits. He had...suspended their lungs with fishing line from the ceiling of the master bedroom in my Malibu beach home. The effect of this act was to create a sense of them being angels, of having been turned into angels. We analyzed this symbology as a sign that Red John was viewing these murders as unfortunate, but necessary. He felt like he needed to kill my wife and child for my actions, and yet, he wanted me and the police to know that he viewed their deaths as a precursor to some greater spiritual awareness on my part. The woman was quite obviously my wife. The child was someone I incorrectly believed to be my daughter, Charlotte. The child's face was positioned.. the child's face was pressed into my wife's breast, as if in a classic breastfeeding pose. Both bodies were naked. The faces of both bodies were painted dark with blood, as if in blackface. Only...redface, if you will. This last detail, the bloody faces, has never been publically released before."

More flashbulbs went off. Jane could feel Lisbon near him. He stared into the camera, eyes burning with years of pain, of rage, of sorrow.

"Today, I and the rest of the CBI team following Red John were called to a case here in Santa Monica which closely resembled the murders of my family ten years ago. A local psychic named Thomas Moore is missing, and his wife and three year old son were found brutally slain. Their lungs were also... pulled out to form angel wings. Their faces were also painted red with blood. We need the public's help. Any information you can provide us on the possible whereabouts of Thomas Moore are greatly needed. The number to call is at the bottom of the screen, now..."

Jane glanced a look at one of the reporters. They all knew why this press conference had been called. Jane took a small breath. Prepared himself.

"During our initial investigation of today's crime scene, we noticed some anomalies in the case. A CD was left at the crime scene, hidden within a plush toy in the little boy's room. This plush toy was an identical copy of one my daughter owned ten years ago. We analyzed the recordings on the CD. They feature a series of conversations between a little girl and a man we believe to be Red John. The little girl appears to be my daughter, Charlotte Ruskin-Jane. We also analyzed the CD for fingerprints and fingerprints were found on the CD that match my daughter's. This leads everyone on this case, including myself, to believe that Charlotte Ruskin-Jane, my daughter, is still alive and that another child was killed and... positioned with my wife, in our bed... Red John's intentions were to lead me to believe, successfully, that he had brutally murdered both my wife and my child. My wife's body and the body of the child I have previously believed to be my daughter, Charlotte, are both currently being exhumed and analyzed by not only government crime scene technicians but by independent third party technicians. We suspect that the dentation of the child buried in my daughter's grave will not match the dental records we have on file for Charlotte. We believe Charlotte Ruskin-Jane is still alive, and has been being raised by Red John all these years," Jane said this all sternly, emotions just under the surface.

"The following are some age-progression photos we have developed that show what Charlotte probably looks like today. If you have seen this child, or have any information about this case, please phone the 1-800 number at the bottom of your screen. No piece of information is too small, and you may remain anonymous if you desire. Anything you might know that pertains to this case is important."

Jane stopped. Waited for a prompt from one of the reporters. He got it.

"Mr. Jane, is there anything you want to say to your daughter if she is out there watching this right now?"

Jane nodded. Stared hard into the bank of cameras.

"Charlotte. Do not believe a word he says. He is a skilled manipulator. He is a liar. Everything he says is a lie. You have to know that, just by watching the hold he has over other people. I want you. I thought you were dead. I want you and if you are watching this, get away now. Phone the police or get somewhere safe, but get to us. But do not trust a word he says..." Jane trailed. Blinked hard.

"I love you, Charlotte."

Flashbulbs popped. Jane stared at the cameras for a moment longer. Began to walk away. There was a flurry of questions from reporters, but Rigsby and Van Pelt and the local police were answering them. Jane had to get inside the police station. Had to sit down.

He felt like he might faint. Felt like he'd aged another ten years in the span of four and a half minutes.

* * *

**Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 9:08 P.M. P.S.T.**

Jane felt detached from his body. There was a tightness spreading across his chest he recognized as growing anxiety. He'd had a few panic attacks as a boy and had learned to control them with deep breathing and visualizations and daily relaxation exercises, but the stress of the last twenty four hours was catching up like a runaway train. Jane wandered down the main hall, found the room he had noticed earlier, a waiting room for family members that doubled as a child's interview room if the idiotic cartoon characters painted on the drywall were any indication. A couch had been dragged in here, presumably to put distraught family members slightly more at ease. Jane walked over to the couch, not bothering to flick the lights on, and lay down in the dark.

The chest pain was like a tensor bandage around his chest, prickly and uncomfortable and tight. He felt a sudden bolt of panic... what if this wasn't anxiety? What if this was something medical, something cardiac? He wasn't exactly the youngest of men anymore and stress could and did cause...

"Careful, Patrick. You're under stress. Slow down," He told himself forcefully, and shut his eyes. Mentally counted to ten and took a slow, long, deep breath. Let it out just as slowly. The tightness seemed to relax a little. He shrugged out of his jacket, let out another slow, long breath and began to unbutton his vest.

The door cracked open. He could see Lisbon in the doorway.

"Jane? Are you okay?"

"Stupid question, Lisbon," Jane said, voice clipped. He shrugged out of his vest and lay back down. He could hear Lisbon approaching him, could sense her shadow over him even with his eyes closed.

"Jane?!"

"Chest pain. It's just anxiety. I think. I just need to deep breathe..."

"Anxiety? You're not prone to panic attacks." Lisbon sounded unduly alarmed and her alarm scared him into another sharp burst of pain. He screwed his eyes tight. Willed the fear away.

"We all...have...our limits, Lisbon. It's...just... anxiety..."

"I'm going to get someone," Lisbon said tightly, and he sighed, despite the pain and the growing fear.

"Lisbon, for crying out loud..." but she was already gone. Her fear was catching. The idea that he might suffer something and (don't say it, don't even think it, that is how panic spreads-_DIE_-_you might die, what if you are dying?!_) never get to see Charlotte after all this forced him to a sitting position. The fear was increasing, a sense of doom, of time running out.

He was up, spurred by adrenaline and the door opened. Lisbon was back, carrying a little wax dixie cup of tap water.

"Jane. Here. Take this," she said, as gently as she could given her worry, and palmed Jane a small, white pill.

"Sublingual... ativan...Lisbon? Really? Where...is...where is your faith...in my...in..."

"Jane, just take the ativan. If your symptoms don't improve in about ten minutes I am taking you to the emergency room."

He nodded, gently put the ativan under his tongue. Allowed it to dissolve. Continued to deep breathe. Lisbon sat down beside him, picked up one of his hands. It was clammy and very cold. Shaking with adrenaline. Five minutes passed. He still felt scared, very scared, but the tightness was letting up a little. The ten minute mark passed. He still had his eyes shut, was still mentally counting, could still feel Lisbon eyeing him with concern and fear.

"Come on, Jane. Stand up. I am taking you to the hospital," Lisbon instructed.

"A few more minutes, Lisbon. I think it's starting to work. Even sublingual pills take a little bit... of time. Different chemistries..."

"Your hands are very cold. You're shaking."

Jane cracked his eyes open and looked at her. "See? Almost a guarantee... that this is anxiety. Excess adrenaline. A heart attack isn't... doesn't..."

Lisbon nodded.

"How do I help you calm down?"

"Just a few more minutes, Lisbon... we wait..."

She could feel her hand on his shoulder, squeezing in support.

"Lisbon?" He said, mouth curving up in a mischevious smile despite his fear, his stress. "This is hardly... the place or the time..."

"Shut up, Jane," Lisbon said shortly, and continued to rub his neck, his back. At the 15 minute mark much of the shaking was gone. He felt a little warmer. Less terrified. The pain was a dull throb, no longer sharp and piercing. He opened his eyes.

"Feeling better?" Lisbon said. She watched him drain the water in the dixie cup, crumple it into a wax paper ball and throw it in the general direction of a waste paper basket in the corner of the room. He missed by a mile.

"Yes. See? I told you. Just anxiety," He stood back up and shrugged back into his vest. There were large sweat stains on the armpits of his dress shirt. He pretended to sniff himself, made a mock offended face.

"I really hope Rigsby and Cho got a good quality deodorant..."

Someone knocked on the door. Lisbon glanced over at it.

"We're in here!" She called.

"I think they know that, if they are knocking," Jane said smugly, obviously feeling better. Lisbon shot him a warning glare. The door opened. It was Rigsby.

"The phones are already lighting up. It's going to be a long night. Cho called, his plane just took off. He'll be ready to meet the exhumation team in about an hour, give or take ten minutes. The family friend? The one that found the bodies this morning? She is here now, they managed to finally get a hold of her. You said to tell you when she arrived?"

"Thanks, Rigsby," Jane said, nodding, following Rigsby out of the room. Lisbon watched him for a moment. What the hell had she just witnessed? Her fear for Jane was only more extensive now. Logically, she knew that stress could drive almost anyone to panic attacks and panic disorder, no matter how naturally calm and balanced they were. The fact that Jane was starting to crack was only evidence that he was human, that Red John was putting him under extreme stress. All of this was obvious, and yet, she had known Jane nearly ten years. He wasn't the type to panic, or not easily. As soon as she had thought these thoughts, she was reprimanded by another part of her own mind.

_What do you expect, Teresa? The man just finds out that the child he'd been led to believe had been brutally slaughtered is alive and has been raised by a sadistic monster for the last decade, and he goes in front of the cameras not an hour later to divulge this information to the world? Of course he is starting to crack. Who wouldn't?_

That was, upon closer inspection, precisely what frightened her. Jane was fast approaching the event horizon of stress. Even taking into account his incredible intelligence and plastic mind, his propensity for behavioral manipulation and hypnosis (not just in others but also himself), he was starting to physically, chemically, lose it. His adrenals were revolting. Endocrinologically, he was changing. It was inevitable.

And they hadn't even found Charlotte yet.

* * *

Jane stood behind the one-way mirror with Lisbon and watched Rigsby and a local police officer re-interview the young woman who had found the bodies of Thomas Moore's wife and young son a little over twelve hours earlier. She was 17 years old, doe-eyed and nervous, skin the colour of milky caramel, a senior at a local highschool who had babysat for Moore multiple times over the previous two years since moving with her family from Oakland. Her name was Marcy Hapscomb.

"They told me they wanted me to come back in for more questions?" The girl said timidly, glancing at Rigsby and then the other young police detective in the room.

"Yes. We have a consultant involved in this case who wants to ask you some questions himself. You're not under suspicion or anything, this case is just very important. It is related to a string of other serial murders and the police who interviewed you this morning? They didn't really understand the gravity of the situation. Before we begin, can I get you anything? A coffee? Juice?" Rigsby's was aiming for that precise blend of seriousness and gentility that Jane had come to expect from the younger man when he interviewed women. Particularly young, innocent, scared women. From his position on the other side of the glass, Jane smirked to himself.

"Um... a coke maybe?" The girl's voice was tremulous, nervous. Jane watched her from behind the glass, silently. Lisbon watched him out of the corner of her eye, but he was totally consumed with watching the young woman.

Rigsby nodded and looked over at the young police officer who was standing by the door.

"You guys have Coke?" Rigsby asked and the police officer nodded.

"The machine only has Pepsi, but I think I can steal a can of Coke from the break room. Banks doesn't need any more Coke, he's already big as a whale. Would you like ice?" The young police officer- Toney his name was- remarked congenially.

"Um, no, that is okay. Just the Coke, thank you," The girl said, darting him a shy smile. He nodded and left them alone.

"Your parents didn't accompany you to the station?" Rigsby prodded gently.

"Um, no. My dad is in Mexico right now? On business? And my mom went with him. They'll be back on Monday? Why? Do I need them here?"

"No. You're not being interrogated as a suspect. As a general rule we prefer to have the parents of minors know if their kids are being questioned for any reason, as a formality. Like I said, you're not in trouble, though."

"I'm almost eighteen. Not really a kid," the girl said shyly. Rigsby smiled.

"I know you have already answered some basic questions, Miss Hapscomb, but if you wouldn't mind going through some basics again with me? That would be appreciated."

Marcy Hapscomb was nodding helpfully.

"Is it okay if I tape this interview? Just so others can look at it later? This case is very important."

"Um...okay?" The girl looked nervous. Rigsby got up and pressed a button on the video camera sitting on a tripod in the corner of the room. Came back to his seat and sat back down.

He asked the girl to state her name, age and relation to Moore and his family. She did, eyes alternating between staring at her hands and fluttering over to the video camera and the red light shining from it, recording her every word, her every move. The baleful eye of a demon.

"What are you thinking?" Lisbon asked Jane, as he continued to stare silently.

"She is scared. But she's telling the truth so far."

"So you came over to the Moore place this morning, around eight in the morning, is that right?" Rigsby asked the teenager on the other side of the glass.

"Yes, sir."

"Can you tell me why?"

"Mr. Moore asked me to. I got a text message from him last night. He and his wife, Linda, recently found out that Eddie...that was their little boy...has autism? Had autism, I mean. And I think maybe they were also having some marriage trouble?"

"Okay. What makes you think that?" Rigsby prodded.

"Just a feeling I got. Eddie was stressing Linda out, I knew that, and she was taking pills for depression. Mr. Moore asked me to come over and fix Eddie breakfast and get him dressed for preschool. One day I went by the house without calling ahead first, because I had left a text book there and was in the neighbourhood and I heard Mr. Moore yelling through the door that Eddie couldn't be his because autism didn't run in his family, and Linda, I could hear her crying. Felt so bad for her."

Rigsby nodded. Sighed.

"So, as far as you know, Mrs. Moore- Linda- was taking pills for depression? Because she was upset about Eddie? And perhaps, because of personal problems between her and Mr. Moore?"

"Yeah, that's right. He would have tantrums a lot. Eddie. Sometimes I would sit for them even when Linda was home. She spent a lot of time in her room, just sleeping. And Eddie was used to me. I could calm him down, sometimes..." the girl trailed, smiling at the memory.

"Had Mr. Moore ever asked you to come over in the mornings to fix Eddie breakfast before? Anything like that?"

"Yes. A few times before. I was supposed to be there around seven thirty so I could have Eddie washed and dressed and fed by around 8:30 and still have time to get to class, but I was running late. My alarm didn't go off on time."

"Okay, so you were about thirty minutes late, then?"

"Yes," the girl said, staring at her hands. Her face looked pinched now, upset. The reality of why she was here, in this police room at this time, could no longer be ignored or denied.

There was a knock on the door and Toney reappeared, holding a can of Coke. He passed it to her, sliding it across the smooth, formica surface of the table and she smiled awkwardly and took the soda, pulled the tab. Took a hesitant sip.

"We just got a few drunk trannies in," Toney said, darting a good natured smile at Marcy Hapscomb meant to put her at ease. "You guys still need me?"

"I think we are good?" Rigsby said, looking over at Toney and then back at Marcy. She nodded quickly. Took another sip of Coke. He nodded and left the room, closing the door gently behind him.

Rigsby was silent for a moment, thinking over what he wanted to ask next. How he wanted to phrase his next few questions.

"So you entered the house at around eight this morning?"

"Yes," Marcy said, taking another sip of soda.

"She's lying," Jane said, eyes intently locked on the young woman on the other side of the glass. "Every time she lies, she takes a sip of Coke."

"Did you knock? Or just go in?" Rigsby asked softly.

"I knocked and rang the bell first, and when there was no answer I checked the door. It was open. So I went in. It was quiet. I called out and when no one answered, I walked down the hall. I knew they were home because I got the text message, and because their car was in the driveway. I checked Eddie's room and he wasn't in there, so I walked down the hall toward Mr. Moore's bedroom. I was starting to get a bad feeling around then. It was too quiet."

"No sound at all? You didn't hear any music? Anything like that?" Rigsby asked gently. The girl shook her head no.

"Her answers are too polished. Too practiced. She's been coached," Jane said, darting a quick glance at Lisbon before turning his attention once more to the interview taking place behind the mirror.

"No...no, I don't think so. It was really quiet. That's when I saw them."

"You opened the door and saw Mrs. Moore and Eddie?"

"Yes. They were dead. They were...naked," the girl said softly, lowering her voice, her cheeks flushing. "I knew right away they were dead. Their lungs... their lungs were out of their bodies, tied up with wire or string or something from the ceiling. I think that is called a Blood Eagle? Something like that? I turned and ran out and ran to my car and called 9-11 on my cell phone."

"She's lying," Jane murmured again, this time more softly. He stood still a moment longer and then strode out of the room, and closed the door behind him. Lisbon continued to watch. Heard the knock on the door.

"Come in," Rigsby called. Jane entered, carrying a manilla envelope up close against his chest. He carefully placed the manilla envelope down on the formica table top and sat down in a chair next to Rigsby. Smiled widely, pleasantly.

"Marcy? Can I call you Marcy?" Jane asked confidentally, fingers resting on the top of the envelope. The girl shot a quick, nervous glance at Jane. Nodded.

"My name is Patrick Jane. I am the consultant on this case. I'm the reason we asked you to come down tonight for more questions."

"Okay," the girl said, smiling shyly at Jane. She took another sip of Coke. Jane smiled back at her.

"When you walked down the hall, and you opened the door to Mr. Moore's bedroom? There was no noise? Nothing?"

"No..." the girl trailed uneasily, eyes moving slowly from Rigsby's face, to Jane, and back again.

"Okay," Jane said, in that same easy, pleasant tone of voice and removed a digital voice recorder from his breast pocket. He clicked a button on it and music began to fill the room. The music was Bach.

"Have you ever heard this piece of music before?" Jane asked, clicking a button on the audio recorder and stopping the music. The girl nodded.

"Yeah, I think so. That's Beethoven, right?"

"Bach," Jane said, smiling at her. "Bach's prelude number 1 in C major, to be precise."

"Why is he asking me about Bach?" The girl asked warily, looking over at Rigsby. Rigsby shrugged and looked dumbfounded, gave her his best don't-look-at-me expression and looked over at Jane himself. Jane smiled at his colleague and turned his attention back to the teenager.

"Why are you lying to the police, Marcy?" Jane said in that same calm, lilting voice.

"I'm not!"

"You never found the bodies of Linda and Edward Moore, did you? Someone else did, and told you to come forward?" Jane pressed.

"I did find them!"

"Funny, then, that you would not remember this piece of music. It was playing in the room the bodies were found in, when the police and crime scene analysts arrived. Why do you think that is?"

"I don't know!" The girl's voice was rising with emotion. She was trapped, and she knew it.

"You know that lying to the police about being a witness to murders is a really big deal, right? Especially on a case like this?"

"A case like this?" The girl asked, looking over at Rigsby questioningly before looking back at Jane. She took another sip of Coke. Lisbon almost- but not quite- felt sorry for her.

"Whoever you are protecting, or covering for, is using you like a pawn. You know that, right?" Jane's voice was still calm and controlled, but there was a fire in his eyes now, an intensity.

"I'm not covering for anybody!" The girl scolded Jane. She looked near tears.

"No?" Jane asked innocently. "Okay. I hope you're right. Because if you're covering for the person I think you're covering for, that would be a very bad deal for you. The people who do things for the person I am thinking of don't usually manage to live for very long after they have fulfilled their use. But if you are telling the truth, then yes, I guess you have nothing to be worried about."

The girl made a shaky, tremulous noise that couldn't quite be called a sigh.

"You know what I do for a living? I study human behavior. I am very good at it. I can tell you things about yourself that would probably surprise you. A long time ago, I worked as a psychic. Before you ask, the question is no. There is no such thing as a real psychic. But I pretended to be a psychic, that's how good I am at figuring things out about people very quickly, based on the way they behave. Want to know what I know about you already?"

The girl looked up shyly, fearfully. Shrugged.

"Your favourite colour is blue. Your favourite food... is pizza? Yup. Pizza. You're very intelligent, but you have some learning disabilities that make you doubt yourself and you've always been bullied at school. It's why you moved from Oakland, right? Your favourite animals are rabbits, guinea pigs... but you like anything small, delicate. Little mice, little birds, anything fragile that needs protection. Small little creatures you can nurture. I wouldn't be surprised to find out you have nurtured abandoned baby birds back to health. Even though you have been bullied, you like to protect the innocent, the vulnerable. Am I right so far?"

There was an almost imperceptible nod from the teenager.

"I have been watching you, and I figured out that you have a tell. Do you know what a tell is, Marcy?"

The girl looked up at Jane. Finally, wordlessly, shook her head.

"It's when someone does something subconsciously, over and over again, when they are lying. Because they feel guilty about lying. Most people have tells. Only psychopaths and sociopaths and people who have no conscience, as a general rule, can lie convincingly without them. Your tell is... whenever we ask you a question and it hits a nerve, and you lie? You take a sip of soda."

The girl stared down at the can of Coke. Sighed shakily. Pushed the can of soda away as if it had suddenly morphed into some hideous creature.

"If you don't want that anymore, can I have a sip?" Jane asked, ducking his head in the direction of the soft drink. The girl nodded, didn't meet his eyes. Jane reached out and gently pulled the can towards himself, holding the can by the rim. Took a sip. Smiled.

"You know, after we are done interviewing you, we can take this can of soda you've been drinking from and run your prints. Notice how I picked it up from the top of the can so I didn't smudge them? And we'll compare them to prints from the Moore residence. If you entered the house, like you said you did, your fingerprints should be on the front doorknob, the doorbell, the doorknob leading to Edward's room and the door leading to the master bedroom... minimally. If they're not on any of those surfaces, then we will know for certain that you are lying, and you will be arrested for obstruction of justice," Jane said this matter of factly. He took another sip of Coke.

Marcy Hapscomb didn't say anything. She was staring at her hands.

"Marcy," Jane prodded, using his most coaxing, gentle I-understand-what-you're-going-through voice. "There is a way out of this, you know. I know you're scared, that is obvious. All you have to do is tell me the truth. We can protect you."

The teen stared at the table. Began to make marks on the table with the oil from her finger tips. Jane let out an exaggerated, disappointed sigh.

"Okay. You know what? You don't have to even talk. I can tell things about a person simply by looking at them, by watching their body language. So, what I am going to do is ask some questions. You don't have to say anything, but I will still get the answers I need. Okay?"

The girl looked over at Jane. Tears were brimming brightly in her eyes. The sheen of tears broke in her left eye and a small trickle fell down her cheek. She was silent.

"Somebody befriended you. Pulled you into a world you don't know how to break out of. You feel loyalties to this friend. Maybe they were an underdog like you? Maybe even now you think they care about you, need you? Or maybe you're just really scared, and don't know how to tell me the truth about this, even though you really want to and know you want to?"

Jane waited a beat. Smiled gently at the adolescent before him. Waited.

"I- I was supposed to go in the house. But I didn't go in the house. I didn't want to..."

"You didn't want to see the bodies," Jane said confidently. The girl shook her head no, confirming his suspicions.

"The person who wanted you to go in the house? They are going to be very angry when they find out what you did. Because your lack of fingerprints inside? That proves you didn't enter, and that makes us look more closely at the crime scene."

The girl nodded. Another rivulet of tears ran down her cheek. She wiped at her face with slender fingers. Jane pulled a paisley, linen hand-kerchief from his pocket, handed it to her. The teenager took it, wiped her face. Stared at Jane with puffy, frightened eyes.

"Someone told you about Moore, right? Introduced you to him? When you first moved here, maybe?" Jane asked gently. The girl was folding the hand-kerchief back up, intent on her work. Finally, she nodded.

"Someone about your age? Maybe a little younger?"

"Her name is Charlie," Marcy Hapscomb said tiredly. Jane stared. Blinked. He hadn't been expecting that.

"Is that short for anything?" Jane prodded intently, darting a quick, meaningful glance in the direction of the one-way mirror, at Lisbon.

"Charlotte," the girl said miserably, staring at the formica table. "Mr. Moore was a family friend of Charlotte's and her uncle. She introduced me. She met me at a youth center. Back when I first moved here. Was nice to me when nobody else was. I told her I wanted to make some extra money and didn't know anybody and that I used to babysit. That's how it started."

"Does Charlotte live with her uncle?" Jane prodded. Marcy nodded, eyes still focused on the formica table, on the lines she was drawing with the oil from her fingertips.

"Yes. I mean.. back then she did, I think. She was about thirteen back then... but now she lives on her own. She is emancipated or something. She is only fifteen, but her place... it is really cool. She is homeschooled. Or maybe she has already graduated. I am not sure. She doesn't like to talk about her personal life..." Marcy trailed. Looked up wearily. Met Jane's eyes.

"Did she ever tell you about her parents? Or talk about them?" Jane's eyes were intent. The adolescent before him sighed. Scratched the side of her cheek.

"She said her parents were dead. Mostly we just hung out. She was teaching me to be more confident. To be a leader..." Marcy trailed.

"A leader of what?" Jane responded immediately. The teenager shrugged.

"Just a leader in general. Certain skills she said would help me in general, in my future. I told her I wanted to help animals. She said she could teach me skills that would help me learn to control people, to get them to listen to me and take me seriously. Not manipulate them, just show them that I was confident so they would be more likely to listen to me in the first place. She was trying to teach me to be strong, she said."

"Who taught Charlotte these skills? Did she ever tell you that?" Jane's eyes were zeroed in on the young woman sitting across from him like lasers.

"Her uncle John. He raised her after her parents died. She said he was... a specialist in abnormal behaviors? Or something like that? And that he had worked for the CIA."

Jane nodded. His mind was buzzing like a beehive with a sudden plethora of unanswered questions.

"Did you ever meet her uncle John?"

"John?" Marcy's voice lilted. She laughed slightly. "No. He was a very busy man. I only saw him twice, from a distance, picking her up in his car. One time he picked her up from the library, another time from the youth center. I never really got a good look at him either time. Like I said, he was a busy man."

Jane was silent for a moment. He told himself to think carefully. Each question was important. This was as close as he'd ever gotten to Red John. And now, Charlotte depended on him.

"You said Charlotte lived on her own? Do you know where that was?"

"Yeah. I mean, not off the top of my head. But I drove out there one night. An apartment complex, some weird name. Something Falls. Cherry Falls? Something like that. All the apartments are cedar, cedar shingles, I mean. Charlotte was upset about something and called me. She was drunk. I think that is the only reason she called me."

"She was drunk?" Jane pressed. Marcy Hapscomb nodded.

"Yeah. I think she drank a lot. She always had beer in her fridge. I mean, I didn't hang out at her place all that often, we usually met at the youth center, but the few times I was allowed over, she offered me beer."

Jane sighed. "What was she upset about?"

"She said she had lost a phone number. It was written on a scrap of paper and she said she had kept it in her shoe and it must have stuck to her foot and come out somewhere in the apartment. She had a cell phone, but wouldn't put this number in her cell phone. She wouldn't even tell me who the number was for. But she wanted me to help her look around for the paper, for the phone number. Which was kind of crazy, considering her house."

"What do you mean?" Jane pressed. The girl raised her eyes from the formica table. Sighed sadly.

"Her whole apartment was stuffed with paper and stuff. Books on every possible topic, I mean... not every possible topic, but history and crime stuff and psychology and stuff to do with torture. Weird stuff. Not usual teenage girl stuff, I mean. There were papers pinned to almost every inch of free wall space, road maps of different parts of California and other states with little pins pushed in them and smiley faces drawn on the maps in certain places. I asked her what the smiley faces were about. She said they were places she had travelled with her Uncle John. I didn't like to be in her place for too long. I mean, it was cool... but sort of creepy. And I don't like bugs."

"Bugs?" Jane prompted. This was getting weirder by the minute.

"In her living room. Along one wall, on these shelves screwed into the wall, there were all these aquariums with different small animals in them. Lizards and stuff. But also tarantulas and stuff. And some of them she said were poisonous. Deadly."

"Okay. Did you ever find that phone number?"

Marcy Hapscomb shook her head.

"No, and the weirdest thing is that she was keeping the number written down, anyway. Because, I mean, she had a great memory, a spookily great memory, really... it would have been super easy for her to memorize almost any number. But she was weird that night, said she couldn't ever memorize it, that it wouldn't be safe to consciously know that number. She made a big deal out of it, how I had to forget why I was over there, it was weird. A few days later she gave me this toy to give to Eddie. A present to him from his Uncle John, she said, this huge, plush monkey. He was too busy to deliver it himself. She asked me to take it the next time I babysat. That was about... I don't know. Two months ago now? She said it didn't matter anymore about the phone number, because of the monkey. That's why it stood out in my head at all. It was an odd thing to say."

"Did you ask her what any of that meant?" Jane asked.

"Um... I just thought she was drunk again. Or high. Charlie... she wasn't exactly always sober, you know?"

Jane nodded sadly. Was glad this was all being taped. He would want to look over this tape later.

"Mister Jane? Can I... can I go to the bathroom?"

Jane was silent for a moment. Running the teen's comments through his head. She was so subservient. So awkward and fearful. Poor kid.

"Mister Jane?" Marcy asked again, looking uneasy and guilty.

"Oh... yeah. Look. We are going to need to keep you here tonight, okay? For your own safety. Agent Rigsby will show you where the bathrooms are. You know where the bathrooms are, right Rigsby?"  
Rigsby, concentration broken, looked over at Jane at the mention of his name. Blinked. Finally nodded.

"Yeah," Rigsby said quickly. "I know where they are. I can show you, Marcy."

"Oh, Marcy?" Jane asked the girl as she stood. "One more thing. Is this Charlotte?"

He pulled a sheet of paper out of the manilla envelope he'd carried into the room and slid the paper towards her. It was a colour laser printed image of the computer-generated age-progession of Charlotte he and Van Pelt had created earlier in the evening. Marcy stared at it for a second. Nodded.

"Yeah. That looks a lot like her. Except... except her hair is a little bit darker and her eyes are a little bit bigger. But yeah. That looks like her."

"Thank you," Jane said. He glanced over at Rigsby, smiled. Nodded. Rigsby was holding the door open for the girl, the perfect gentleman.

Jane followed them out. He needed some fresh air. He needed to recharge before he asked this kid anymore questions. His head was swirling with new information. He saw Lisbon out of the corner of his eye, walking towards him at a brisk pace.

"Jane..." Lisbon started, not quite sure what she wanted to say to him.

"She knows Charlotte, Lisbon! She was in her apartment!" Jane's eyes were bright with excitement.

"Doesn't any of this feel off to you? She... that kid just told us so much, so easily. Usually, people who have been in touch with Red John aren't quite so forthcoming."

"That's because she wasn't in touch with Red John. She was in touch with Charlotte. Charlotte is not Red John, Charlotte won't have the same skill set as Red John. These two were friends, Lisbon."

"Friends, Jane? Really? Because it sounds like this kid has been played. You saw her in there! She would do anything anyone with a manipulative personality told her to do-"

"Manipulative personality? What exactly are you saying, Lisbon?" Jane's eyes were suddenly hard as diamonds. Glittering.

"Jane, this feels off. That's all I am saying. I wouldn't take everything this girl says at face value, not before we know more."

"So we do what, we discard everything she has told us?"

"No, Jane, of course that is not what I am saying-" Lisbon started, but Jane was already walking away from her. Back into the interview room. He paused by the table. Froze. Turned around and ran back out of the room at a sprint. Lisbon stared after him incredulously, then looked down at the table.

Smudged onto the table with body oil, was the word: SORRY. Next to these block letters was a classic Red John smiley face. Lisbon exhaled slowly, not liking the sudden sinking feeling in her stomach one bit, and burst into a run after Jane.

She could hear Jane calling for Rigsby, asking Rigbsy what bathroom he had taken the teen to. Rigsby looked confused by the sudden yelling but quickly clued in. Lisbon caught up to them. Jane was launching himself at the bathroom door, trying to burst in and using his shoulder to ram at the door, yelling for help. The door was locked. From inside there was a sudden crashing noise, the sound of the mirror over the sink being broken.

Things moved very quickly then. A police officer was at the door with a key, unlocking it. Jane was inside, yelling for help, for someone to call an ambulance. Lisbon entered, and then shut her eyes. Knew that an ambulance would, almost certainly, not be necessary.

Marcy Hapscomb was lying on the tiled floor in front of the sinks, and mirrored glass lay around her in reflective shards, multiplying the gory scene. A large shard of mirror was sticking out of the side of her neck. Remarkably, she was still alive. Jane rushed to her, pulled her into his lap on the floor. Blood was splashing out of her wound, staining Jane's hands with hot, wet redness, with her rapidly depleting life. Jane stared at the wound for a moment, obviously uncertain about what to do. Apply pressure? Remove the glass? If he applied pressure and the glass was still in there, would he make the wound worse? If he pulled it out, would she bleed to death faster?

The girl was gazing up at him, skin tone pale, eyes full of glassy, end-of-life fear. When she spoke, blood from the wound in her neck bubbled out from between her lips, and popped.

"I'm s-sorry, Mist...Mister Jaaanne..."

Jane shushed her. He didn't know what else to do. An arc of arterial blood had sprayed clear across the room, over what was left of the mirrors, over the bone-white, gleaming sinks. Now the room smelled nauseatingly of blood mixed with strong disinfectant and industrial cleaner. The mixture was stomach turning.

"I-I know you wwanted to s-see your d-daughter...s-she...w-wantsss to see-ee...y-youu tooo..." The girl slurred. Her eyes were even more glassy now, the pupils almost fully dilated.

"Why did you do this, Marcy?" Jane asked, eerily calm.

"H-he'll...gett...gett...mee..."

"He?!" Jane asked the dying girl. He already knew the answer, though. She smiled and made a low chuckle around the mirrored glass in her neck.

"R-Reddd... Redddd Jaww...wnnn..." She trailed. Her lips stopped moving. The life left her eyes. It was sudden.

Jane held her for a long time. Finally he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up. Lisbon was staring at him with pained eyes. Jane ignored her and turned back to the dead teen whose upper body he was cradling in his lap, against his chest.

Lisbon let him be.

* * *

End of Chapter Four, please review.


	5. Chapter 5

**Title:** Charlotte's Web (Chapter Four) by Lexikal  
**Rating:** M for graphic violence and language  
**Fandom:** The Mentalist  
**Summary:** Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.

**Author's Note: **Thanks for the reviews guys. I recently saw the season finale "Red John's Rules". From what I can tell online, many people are disappointed. They wanted to know Red John's identity and claim that they are losing interest in the show. I can see why you might be frustrated, but it goes to show the audience just what a tricky, incredibly bright monster Red John is. I hope this story does the show justice. It is hard to write Jane in scenarios which seem altogether more gory and darker than the general tone of the show.

If you are wondering why I go into such great detail describing the brand names and flavours Charlotte likes, it is to cast light on her frame of mind. Charlotte, in this story, is stuck at an emotionally young age, and she has also been raised by Red John and terrorized. As a defense mechanism/coping mechanism, she has turned to getting drunk but also having certain rituals (including only eating packaged foods uinless she buys fruit herself and eats it immediately), and she is very picky about the brands and flavours she likes, because it is one small thing she can control. Red John controls everything, is a monster, so seemingly trivial things become a way to maintain sanity. Please review.

* * *

"In the democracy of the dead all men at least are equal. There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the republic of the grave." - John James Ingalls

"There is no death, what we call death.  
Is but surcease from strife;  
They do not die who we call dead,  
They go from life ... to Life."

-Randall M. Falk, Rabbi Emeritus, The Temple

"All children have to be deceived if they are to grow up without trauma." - Kazuo Ishiguro

* * *

"Jane? Let them take her." Lisbon's voice was unusually soft.

Paramedics were wheeling a gurney into the police station's hallway. Jane had been sitting for over ten minutes with the corpse of Marcy Hapscomb in his arms. Jane nodded and gently repositioned the corpse on the floor and stood up. Marcy's glassy, unseeing eyes were staring right through him. She was either discovering the mysteries of the universe, now, or had simply ceased to exist. Jane stared back at her deep, brown eyes and blinked. He took a step away from the body and seemed to weave on his feet before finding his balance. The front of his vest suit was soaked in arterial blood, as were the arms of his white dress shirt. Jane looked down at the front of himself and squinted his eyes as if he wasn't seeing clearly. Finally he blinked again and walked out of the bathroom. He began to walk back towards the interview room, presumably to get the tape of Marcy's testimony and go over it.

Lisbon caught up to him, tugged at his arm.

"Jane. I'll send Rigsby to get you some clothes. You need to get cleaned up. You're covered in blood."

Jane blinked a third time, a hard, traumatized tic. Sighed.

When he finally spoke, it was a revolting idiotic response. "So?" He sounded, at that moment, like a petulant teenager. The quality of his voice combined with all the blood soaking through his clothes was more than a little disorienting.

"Jane," Lisbon pleaded. "Please. Let's get you cleaned up."

"I need to look at that tape, Lisbon. I need to review the information."

"Jane, the tape is not going to go anywhere. I promise. I'll guard it myself. I already sent Rigsby out with the rental car to get you some clothing."

Jane gazed around the fluorescent bullpen of the Santa Monica police department he was standing in. Swayed on his feet.

"Whoa," Lisbon said, putting out an arm to steady him. "You okay?"

Jane nodded his head.

"C'mon, I want the paramedics to look at you while they're here..." Lisbon trailed, leading Jane back through the hall, in the direction of the ambulance parked outside in the station's parking lot.

"Lisbon..." Jane whined, sounding terribly put out. "I'm fine. Just a little shaky."

"Humor me," Lisbon said. It spoke volumes about Jane's state of mind that his only retort to that was a long, drawn out, world-weary sigh. For the second time that day he allowed Lisbon to guide him.

"I feel like a decrepit old ram being led by a pesky border collie to his doom," Jane muttered. It was a typically stupid-Jane thing to say, and ordinarily Lisbon would have given him the evil eye. Right now she was too worried about the man she had come to think of as her partner to shoot him any look other than silent pleading.

"Jane, you weaseled your way out of seeing a doctor earlier. And after that panic episode earlier? And now? You're swaying on your feet! You're going to have a medic look at you!"

"They're glorified boy scouts, Lisbon. They can't actually do much. You didn't think they could, did you? Slap on a bandage here, shock a heart back into a normal sinus rhythm there. Every so often, insert an IV and make worried faces and speed their little-"

"HUSH," Lisbon commanded forcefully, darting an appraising look at Jane. He didn't seem so wobbly anymore. It was then that she noticed his right hand was trickling a steady stream of blood onto the thigh of his suit's right pant leg. As she watched, the blossom of blood on Jane's leg continued to grow, a liquid cancer. Lisbon stopped him and inspected the hand under one of the parking lot's orange high pressure sodium lamps. Swore to herself. Jane had obviously cut himself on a piece of mirror and the palm of his hand was deeply lacerated. As Lisbon watched, a small glut of blood collected in the deepest of the lacerations and began to slowly fall onto the macadam in steady drip-drip-drips. Lisbon felt a little swoon-y herself, looking at the injury.

"You didn't notice this?" Lisbon asked concernedly. Jane had seen the wound and looked away, apparently disinterested.

"It's nothing. Just a scratch."

"Jane, this is going to need stitches." Lisbon said tiredly. Out of the corner of her eye she could see two paramedics leave the front of the station and begin to maneuver the gurney with the black body bag strapped atop it toward the ambulance.

"Excuse me!" Lisbon called to them, and steered Jane toward them. "Before you leave, would you take a look at my colleague? I think he's in shock-"

"Lisss-boonnn, am not."

The paramedics exchanged glances. One of them nodded. "Yeah, sure." Lisbon continued to walk Jane over to the ambulance. The paramedic who had spoken to them jumped up and opened the back of the door. Jane made an exasperated face and climbed up inside the vehicle, followed by Lisbon. Jane steered himself over to another gurney in the back of the ambulance and sat down, holding out his bloody hand for inspection with a bored look on his face.

The paramedic pulled off his latex gloves, disposed of them in a biowaste bin and put on a new pair.

"This is going to need stitches," the young medic said after a moment, gently palpating the still-bleeding wound. "Do you have any cuts anywhere else?"

"I don't think so," Jane said, sounding as bored as he looked.

"Okay. Would you mind if I take your pulse...?"

"Patrick," Jane supplied pleasantly. "I suppose you can. If it will satisfy Lisbon, here."

"Um... yeah. Okay." The young man reached around inside the interior of the ambulance and turned on a small cardiac monitor. He clipped a grey plastic oximeter to the end of Jane's left pointer finger, waited for Jane's numbers to appear on the screen.

"Your pulse is a little higher than we like to see and your blood pressure is a little on the low side. Do you feel dizzy at all, Patrick? Or nauseated?"

"A little of both, I guess," Jane admitted dutifully. Lisbon straightened up beside him, worry etched into her features.

"He disappeared last night and didn't wake up until mid-day today, with no memory of anything in between, a 6 hour drive from his home. And earlier tonight, he was having chest pains-"

"It was just an anxiety attack," Jane sighed, sounding exasperated.

"And he was checked out by a doctor?" The paramedic asked. He had opened up an orange medic's bag and pulled out a large gauze pad and a gauze roll, scissors.

"What's with this *he* stuff, I am sitting right here-" Jane started. Lisbon cut him off.

"He hasn't seen a doctor yet. I am trying to convince him to go," Lisbon answered.

Gently, with an absorbent towel, the medic sopped up the majority of the blood, before gently applying the gauze pad and pressing it into place with the adhesive edges.

"Any time there is memory loss for unknown reasons, it is always a good idea to get checked out by a doctor, Patrick," the medic said slowly, as if speaking to a small child, before glancing up at his patient. His expression was one of sheer incredulity. "And I can tell you right now, that this injury is going to need stitches at the very least. Possibly surgery."

At that comment Jane rolled his eyes. Lisbon had to work at not hitting him.

"I'm not riding in an ambulance with a corpse," Jane said simply. Lisbon sighed.

"No, of course. Your friend here can take you. You are not in any immediate danger. But you really should see a doctor as soon as practically possible," the young man said, darting what was obviously meant to be a meaningful look at Jane, and then Lisbon. At the word "practically" Jane had glanced over at Lisbon with an evil grin.

"We'll be going to the hospital now. Thank you for your help," Lisbon told the young medic. She could still feel Jane smiling at her and combined with her worry for him and the extreme stress of the last twenty four hours, she had to work harder than expected at not blowing up at him.

"When you get there, you should tell them about the chest pains and memory loss he's been experiencing. Make sure they check him out... _thoroughly_."

"You worry too much. I'm always like this," Jane mumbled. Lisbon shot him a warning look.

Jane shifted himself off the gurney and slowly clambered out of the back of the ambulance. Lisbon followed after him.

"Thank you, again," Lisbon said gratefully. The medic nodded and jumped out of the ambulance after Lisbon to help his partner load the gurney.

"Good luck," the young man said, glancing over at Jane again with a slightly stunned expression.

Lisbon smiled back at the medic. If this guy only *knew*.

* * *

**Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 10:18 P.M. P.S.T.**

"Jane!" Lisbon called after him. He was heading away from the ambulance and back to the police department at a brisk clip. Not running. But not that far from running, either. A definite trot. Lisbon ran in front of him. Stopped him.

"We are going to the hospital. This is not optional."

Jane held his hands up in a "don't shoot" gesture and nodded.

"Okay. Fine. Hospital. I get it. But I am getting that tape first," and he ducked around her. Lisbon stared after him and then followed him back into the station. She understood Jane's reasoning. Things related to Red John had a habit of going bad, going missing, or both. Jane opened the door to the interview room, crossed over to the video camera and snatched the mini dv tape out of the video camera, flapped it at Lisbon in what was obviously supposed to be a mildly taunting gesture and hid it in his vest like a magician's trick: Now you see it. Now you don't.

"Hospital. Now," Lisbon said meeting his eyes.

"Since when have I ever argued with you about medical care, Lisbon?"

"Are you serious?" Lisbon queried, opening the door for him. The response was a miserably annoying grin. Combined the blood spackle on his face, it didn't quite have its intended effect.

* * *

**Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 10:54 P.M. P.S.T.**

"Holy shit, you're covered in blood!" The boy was 13, maybe 14, pale and wearing a Metallica t-shirt full of holes and jeans with ripped-out knees. He was sitting next to his buddy, an older boy of about 18 with a bright orange mohawk and a leather jacket covered in studs who had sustained some sort of head injury, judging by the bloody towel he was pressing to his own head. Both boys were glassy-eyed and smelled of marijuana and tobacco smoke and there was a faint whiff of cheap cologne coming from mohawked kid.

Jane looked down at himself, as if appraising his appearance for the first time.

"You're right. But it's okay. Most of this isn't my blood," Jane said, a little too glibly. Lisbon shot him a dark look.

"What, you hurt your hand?" The kid persisted, nodding at Jane's bandaged hand. The small smile on Jane's face that had started to develop at the end of the kid's first statement grew a little larger.

"Got it in one. What happened to your buddy?"

"The idiot tried to drill a hole in his head," the kid said, and then snickered laughter into his tanned hand, nicotine-stained fingers splayed over his blackhead-studded nose. Jane looked over at Lisbon and raised his eyebrows in mock shock. Lisbon deliberately looked away, at the television mounted to the wall, which had been muted and was running constant CNN broadcasts.

"Why'd your friend try to drill a hole in his head?" Jane asked curiously, innocently, darting a look at the older boy. "Can I see?"

The older boy sighed and gently moved the towel just a bit. Blood slopped down his brow like viscous paint, fire-engine red. Jane winced.

"I, uh... wanted to expand my spiritual consciousness. Trepanation, you know?"

"Not really," Jane murmured, trying to hook Lisbon's eyes, but she was very deliberately ignoring the three of them.

"What happened to you?" The younger kid pressed, motioning his head in the direction of Jane's right hand.

"I had a little accident with the weed whacker. Never weed-whack when you've been drinking," Jane allowed tolerantly. Lisbon, still ignoring them, rolled her eyes.

"That is the best injury story I've heard in the last three hours," the little Metallica fan said brightly, chirping back up. "Is it true?"

"Last three hours? How long have you been here?" Jane said, smile wavering a little.

"Maybe five hours? I guess they're very busy?"

Jane glanced around. Aside for an incredibly drunk guy handcuffed to a gurney, himself, Lisbon and these two kids, the ER waiting room was empty.

"You registered, right?" Jane prompted after a moment.

"Registered?" The older kid said, voice foggy. "What do you mean?"

"See that lady behind that glass window over there?" Jane coaxed, pointing at the intake desk. "You have to go over there and let them know you're here. Otherwise... they don't know you're here."

"But.. can't they see Rudy's seriously hurt over here?" The little Metallica fan said, voice scandalized.

Jane pursed his lips together and shrugged his shoulders.

"Aw, damnit... " the kid said, tugging his older pal to his feet. Together, the two tottered away, the smaller kid holding up the older one as if he was a drunkard. Jane watched them go, smile increasing, and turned his head over to Lisbon for her reaction.

"It's not funny," Lisbon said sourly.

"It's not?" Jane shot back, widening his eyes ever so slightly.

"No," Lisbon said, turning her head away from him. _Damn it, Jane. _

"Mister Jane?" A nurse was holding a clipboard, calling out into the waiting room. Lisbon stood immediately. Jane, not so much.

"Can my mom come in with me?" Jane quipped, deadpan. Lisbon sighed, gritted her teeth together. Sighed again. The nurse, a middle-aged black woman in powder blue scrubs, looked over at Lisbon, then at Jane, expression somewhere between confusion and wariness.

"I'm his colleague," Lisbon said, walking toward her. Jane, slowly, followed.

From twelve feet away, then, the younger boy said: "Whoa, dude? You hear that? That lady was that guy's mom!"

Jane, half-way to Lisbon, smiled widely at the comment.

* * *

"Okay, you're going to feel a little pinch now," the female doctor in charge of Jane's care said, making eye contact with her reluctant patient.

"I don't know why you people always say that. A little pinch. It's never a little pinch but still-" Jane started, and midway through his speech the doctor jabbed him with the needle. Jane jerked a bit and Lisbon rested one hand on his shoulder to calm him. The doctor inserted the needle four seperate times, injecting lidocaine into multiple spots around the weeping wound.

:"Okay, we're just going to wait a few minutes for you to get numb before we start," she said dutifully.

"In addition to this wound, he was having chest pains earlier-"

"Anxiety attack Lisbon!"

"-And he is not prone to anxiety attacks. I gave him an ativan and he seemed to feel better. And last night he disappeared while driving and woke up today with no memory of the events, a 6 hour drive from his home-"

"Red John, Lisbon!"

"-Jane! Hush! I am speaking to the doctor!"

"She's obviously busy, Lisbon-"

"He will not seek out medical care on his own, and I am worried," Lisbon finished. The doctor looked a little stunned at the exchange. Nodded, slowly.

"Red John?" She finally said, darting a questioning look at Jane.

"Just this sadistic serial killer my colleague and I and the rest of our team are tracking across California. He likes to do things to people who get in his way. Kidnap them. Kill them. Make them sing karaoke dressed up in drag. You get the idea-"

"Jane!" Lisbon spat, irritation bubbling over. "That's enough!" Hane stared back at her with glassy eyes and Lisbon felt a increasingly familiar sense of unease start to grow in her chest, her belly. _Was Jane losing it? For real?_

"She asked about Red John, Lisbon!" Jane said, mock wounded. "Was I supposed to just... not answer her?"

The doctor glanced at Jane, then back at Lisbon. Clearly out of her depth.

"You're hunting a serial killer?" She finally said, looking a little wary.

"Yes," Jane said simply, no smile left in his features.

"And... you think he is responsible for your abduction? Um, your amnesia?"

"I know he is. And believe me, however he eradicated my memory of last night's events? He's done it to others. There won't be any drugs on any tox screen, nothing you'd think to test for."

The doctor chanced a glance at Lisbon, as if for confirmation. Lisbon nodded sullenly. "He's probably right. But I still want him checked out."

"Um... we could draw his blood and run the standard tox screen, but... how long ago did he go missing?"

"About 24 hours ago, now," Jane quipped, a little too eagerly. His pupils seemed, all at once, too big.

"Yeah.. that could be a problem. Many substances would already have been metabolized by the body. But... we can still run his blood. Also check his cardiac enzyme level... just in case. Although, if his symptoms improved- especially given the stress you two are obviously under- and after the ativan, I would tend to agree that his symptoms were almost certainly stress related. But I will still draw his blood."

"Thank you," Lisbon said, looking a little embarrassed.

"Your partner is right to be concerned, though," The doctor said, almost sternly, looking back at Jane. "Even if your chest pains today were only anxiety- and I am fairly confident that they were- panic attacks and panic disorder can be debilitating and life changing. Like any other problem, panic attacks are best dealt with sooner rather than later-"

"My daughter- who I had been led to believe was dead for the last decade- may be alive. Red John quite possibly stuck another child's dead body in my wife's arms. My wife, he really did kill, in case you're wondering. Arranged them both like naked angels, lungs pulled out of their backs to mimic wings and everything. And now... now I find out she is alive? So I think chest pains... I think they are an appropriate response to learning your child has been kept alive under false pretenses and raised by the serial killer who destroyed your life. Don't you?" Jane's voice was unusually caustic, his words verging on a tirade. He had started out reasonably calmly, but his words, ever so slightly, had taken on a desperate quality, a shaky, adrenaline-charged tremor that was somehow worse than screams. The doctor looked at Lisbon helplessly. Lisbon's face froze, a mix of fear and grief for her partner.

"Jane? I asked her to look you over. She's just doing her job," Lisbon said slowly.

"This is a waste of time, Lisbon. You know it and I know it. I should be out looking for Charlotte-"

"After they stitch your hand up," Lisbon said sharply, hoping Jane would submit, would calm down. Jane glanced at her. Blinked. Nodded. The look on his face was eerily calm, the look of someone minutes away from losing it and flipping out. She had never seen Jane so close to the edge. Had he looked like this before his breakdown all those years ago? Had there been any warnings? And what did a breakdown look like when Jane was experiencing it? Lisbon let out a slow sigh. Mentally prayed Jane would calm himself.

"I am not waiting around here for blood test results," he warned. She could see the anger and fear and grief coming off him, almost as visible waves. His hand, already injected with numbing agents, was shaking ever so slightly.

"Okay. But at least let them draw your blood. Just in case," Lisbon said as gently as possible. "Please, Jane."

He was silent for a moment. Shut his eyes. Lisbon guessed he was counting to calm himself down. Finally he opened his eyes. Sighed audibly.

"Okay. I will let them draw my blood. For you, Lisbon. And then we leave."

Lisbon nodded. The doctor had been silent, watching this exchange warily, awkwardly.

"How is that hand feeling, now, Patrick?" She said calmly, moving slowly. Jane sighed again. Flexed his hand.

"It's numb. You can start."

The doctor didn't ask him twice. She pulled the suture kit over to the counter Jane's injured hand was resting on, pulled over a stool on wheels and sat down.

"Patrick, I am going to use synthetic absorbable sutures for you, okay? And I will write you up a script for some broad spectrum antibiotics. That will save you a trip back here to have the stitches taken out," This too, was said very calmly. Jane nodded. He felt a little dizzy, a little too hot. God, how he hated hospitals. Just hurry up already and sew the damned thing shut already.

The lights were too bright, too cold. Too fluorescent. The gash in his hand yawned up at him, fatty layers exposed a terrible, ugly yellow that was making him feel a little faint.

The doctor picked up the needle and began to stitch his hand. Jane, very deliberately, focused on trying to read a poster on the far wall that was advertising some waterproof cast cover called _XeroSox: clean and dry- XeroSox is the original vacuum sealed bandage and cast cover! _

Both the doc and Lisbon let him be.

* * *

Charlotte Ruskin-Jane- now known as Charlotte Walker- was sitting on her couch, watching the news, fingers overlaced over a stuffed animal she had won for herself at a carnival several years earlier, a red devil with a hollow plastic pitchfork permanently attached to his left hand and a plastic smirk splayed across his bulbous head. His eyes lit up and blinked bright orange when you pushed a button in the palm of his right hand. Red John, she knew, would hate this thing. Not that he had ever laid eyes on it. But, she knew, he would have found it tacky as all get out. If you pushed a button in his right foot (hoof?) the stuffed animal sang a song. A tinny 30-second rendition of Elvis' "You're the Devil in Disguise".

She loved it. She had named the little devil "Bunsen" (after the Bunsen burner) and slept with it every night, right thumb corked in her mouth. She never washed it for fear of damaging it. Just sprayed it with Febreze fabric refresher. The one that smelled like Gain, original scent.

Her father was on the television screen now, talking, eyes bright. So much emotion in his voice. So much pain in those eyes. She watched him, mesmerized, furious and grief-stricken. She'd seen him on the news on and off over the years, usually in the background at crime scenes. Cocky bastard. But now... he looked genuinely upset. Charlotte had warred with emotions surrounding her father for the last two or three years. Part of her, a big part, believed wholeheartedly that he had given her away to Red John. Maybe he had regretted the choice, but obviously he had given her away. He had never come to look for her, had he?

But part of her had always wondered. She knew the power Red John had over people. Might he have the same power over her? Might Red John have lied to her? She didn't like to think so. Still, looking at her father talking to the press, eyes haunted and bright- eyes that were screaming without making a sound- she felt a wash of despair and grief. And rage. All at once. Fuck, she wanted to get drunk. Couldn't though. Not tonight.

She already had her black chucks on and laced up. Already had her favourite olive green army jacket on and zipped up, jeans a little too baggy, the knees ripped out just as she liked. Under the army jacket, she was wearing an old Korn t-shirt, full of holes. Another "band" Red John hated.

Something would happen. Red John would make his move soon. Either kill her, or kill her father. At her feet sat her backpack, neon green and covered with doodles drawn in sharpie marker. She didn't want to believe it, that Red John would ever hurt her, and yet... she knew he hurt people. Killed them, or got them to kill themselves. She had seen him do it dozens of times. Always with the same intensity in his eyes, the same smile on his lips. Knew she would go crazy if she didn't do something soon. Knew that Red John wanted her to kill soon. And while the idea of killing appealed to her, on another level, it made her feel sick. Maybe that, more than wanting to know the truth about her father (in her head she always thought of him as "Patrick") was why she had left that message for Patrick in that stuffed orangutan? She had had to do something. Waiting to make her first kill... it was too much. It was too hard.

Her programming was extensive. It was so hard to know what reality was. Who was safe, who was not. Who was good, who was bad, who was stupid, who deserved terror and cruelty, who deserved respect. To know who to trust, or what to do. Was she evil? She wasn't sure. Maybe she was. Sometimes... sometimes she thought so. The imagery and thoughts that raced through her head could be vicious, could be... cruel. They taunted her. They called to her. They wouldn't leave her alone. _Join us. Make us real. You know you want to._

Thoughts could be demons in their own right.

Sometimes she worried she was just like Red John. Sometimes she worried she was nothing like Red John, a weakling, a sheep... like most people. She wasn't sure which would be worse.

It was all so confusing. If Red John really was as bad as her recent nightmares were leading her to believe... did she even want to get away from him? Wouldn't he just track her down if she tried? So confusing. So hard to know what to do. Charlotte had a box of frosted strawberry pop tarts waiting for her on the coffee table. She reached down, pulled her backpack up into her lap, and unzipped it. Stuffed the stuffed animal devil into it, pushing the button in the hoof and starting the tinny-Elvis song. She leaned over and grabbed at the box of pop tarts. She ripped the top off it, pulled a pair of foil rectangle out and ripped the foil off. Began to scarf the pastry down. She hadn't eaten in nearly 30 hours. The remaining two packs of pop tarts, she dropped into her backpack with the rest of her crap.

Inside that backpack was everything she would be taking with her: her birth certificate. Red John had a copy of it. Hell, Red John controlled the people who made such documents. ID was such a stupid idea. It was in a protective plastic cover. Also, her favourite book, "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli. Two cans of Pepsi. A box of strawberry fruit by the foots. A box of Little Debbie chocolate pies. A Winchester folding knife. A knife whetstone. An mp3 player. 5 pairs of socks, 3 pairs of underwear, deodorant, a toothbrush, aquafresh kids' toothpaste, dental floss, no-rinse camping shampoo, a new facecloth. A bottle of Flintstones chewable multivitamins (her favourite was always dino, and always when he was grape, but if she couldn't find a grape dino she would settle for a grape Great Gazoo. When she ran out of grape Dinos and grape Great Gazoos, she threw the rest of the bottle away). And 600 dollars (10 fifty-dollar bills and 5 twenty-dollar bills) in a blue velcro wallet with Optimus Prime's likeness on the front (she'd found the transformers wallet in a dollar store and purchased it on an impulse). A page printed off the library's computer with the name TERESA LISBON and an email address, the CBI headquarters in Sacramento. Lisbon's number. Jane's number, his email... she hadn't been able to find anywhere. Had been too scared to keep looking, certain that Red John would know, would know and... she didn't know where those thoughts led, only that it was dark there. Dark and wet... terrifying.

Someone asked her father, now: _"Mr. Jane, is there anything you want to say to your daughter if she is out there watching this right now?"_

Charlotte froze. Looked over at the television. Her mouth felt dry, barren. Her heart was stammering along, burdened with grief and fear and excitement. Tendrils of adrenaline shoot into her blood stream, chemical squirts of fight or flight reaction.

Her father was staring right at the camera, directly at her, almost. Could he see her? Could he see her through the television? Was he magical? Red John was magical. He was Patrick Jane, and he was important. And he was looking right at her, now. As if he could see her through the camera, through the distance of time and space. As if he could see her right this second.

His voice was filled with emotion, impossible to describe, sad and angry and powerful.

He said: "Charlotte. Do not believe a word he says. He is a skilled manipulator. He is a liar. Everything he says is a lie. You have to know that, just by watching the hold he has over other people. I want you. I thought you were dead. I want you and if you are watching this, get away now. Phone the police or get somewhere safe, but get to us. But do not trust a word he says..."

Charlotte stared. She had been expecting as much. Had known it in her gut. Had slowly come to believe that Red John had stolen her and not made any deal with her father, and yet... accepting such a thing was almost impossible. Another burst of rage caught in her abdomen like tinder catching on fire. She swore, popped the rest of her strawberry pop tart into her mouth, wiped the crumbs off on the thighs of her jeans. She picked up her backpack and shrugged it onto her shoulders. Picked the .Daisy 622X .22 caliber pellet handgun off the coffee table and walked towards the front door. She would have to move fast now.

At the door she stopped, turned around. Begin to fire. Shot the glass out of all the aquariums against the far wall. Poisonous critters of all sorts rained down in a screaming crash of breaking glass. Charlotte watched the aquariums explode. When every last one had been shot down, she tucked the pellet gun in the front side pocket of her coat and opened the front door.

The hallway was empty, dimly lit by crappy, flickering lights. Suddenly, the fear swept up like a wave, and she knew she was running out of time. Charlotte Walker began to run, taking the stairs two at a time. She was suddenly at the back fire escape, bolting through it, into the dark, eerie night. Heart thundering.

She couldn't help the feeling that she was being watched, that any second she would be shot dead, any second *something* would happen. Something terrible. She sprinted ten blocks. Knew where she was going. The closest police station.

* * *

**Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 11:38 P.M. P.S.T.**

The police station reminded her of a trap, all lit up from the inside and glowing ominously, like something used to catch and electrocute pesky moths. Anybody in there could be working for Red John, anybody. Red John surely knew by now what had been on the news earlier. Red John knew. Red John always knew.

Charlotte was crouched across the street from the police station, behind a copse of trees. Her chest felt tight. Her vision was pinholed.

What was the alternative to going in there? Living on the streets and being "found" by Red John in a day or a week or a month? Continuing to live as his protégée and never knowing the truth, never knowing what reality was, or if her father wanted her? If her entire life was a lie?

Charlotte had put a small cyanide pill in a plastic baggy and stuck it in her left converse all-star sneaker. If things got too bad, that was always an option...

This police station was weird looking, all 90 degree angular and boxy, like a German art project. Would this be where she died?

The teenager pulled a joint out of her pocket, cupped her hands around the front as she lit it with a tiny green bic. She took a few deep tokes, then put the joint out. Dug a small hole in the ground with the toe of her shoe and pushed the joint into it.

The police station looked so cold, so uninviting. Charlotte popped a piece of Juicy Fruit into her mouth. Let them fucking arrest her for smoking some pot. Time to get this show on the road...

* * *

There was a long hallway, slanting, and a front desk. Charlotte forced herself to walk forward, not to turn around and run the other way. There was a youngish looking police officer at the front desk. The waiting area was empty.

Charlotte approached the young officer. He looked up at her.

"Can I help you?"

"I need to speak to a Mr. Patrick Jane," she said. Her voice sounded much too far away, thanks to the pot.

"Patrick Jane?" the officer repeated brusquely, hammered some buttons on his keyboard and waited while results come back. "We don't have anyone here by that name."

"He wasn't arrested. He is a police consultant. He was... on the news earlier tonight?"

The young police officer whipped his head to the side, questioned another cop passing by.

"That CBI consultant, is he still here? This girl is looking for him."

The passing police officer spared her a quick glance, sighed. Like he had to deal with this all the time.

"I think he went to the hospital or something. Not sure. Some of his people are still here. Want me to get one of them?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Charlotte watched the exchange. This was going as well as she could have hoped, and yet, the air in this place felt too flat, like someone was slowly drawing all the usable oxygen out of it. Was one of these men going to be responsible for her death? Charlotte blinked, realized the cop at the desk was talking to her.

"Sorry? What?"

"And you are?" The police officer repeated again, sounding a little put-out for having to repeat himself. Fuck, Charlotte hated the pigs.

She had considered this, how to play this. Act enigmatic, use a false name, play with Patrick? Or just... come right out and tell him? Playing enigmatic seemed silly. Patrick would take one look at her, and he would know who she was. Wouldn't he?

"My name is Charlotte."

"Charlotte what?" The cop pressed, looking at her suspiciously. Charlotte didn't like this. This felt... wrong. This guy felt hostile.

"Just Charlotte. Charlotte is good enough. He'll know who I am."

"Okay. You can take a seat," The copper said dismissively. Charlotte nodded, retreated to the plastic bucket seats and sat down. This was one of the richest police departments in the country and their waiting room seats still sucked.

She had just sat down when she could hear a hushed exchange somewhere nearby. She heard her name and the word "girl" and then "Mr. Jane". Then someone asked if she was still here. There was movement as the cop returned, this time with a short asian man. The asian man had stern eyes, eagle eyes, and he saw her immediately. Charlotte straightened up in the bucket seat.

"Charlotte?" The asian man said, eyes locked on her. Charlotte nodded slightly. Slowly got to her feet and approached the front desk.

"I am looking for Patrick Jane?"

"Your name is Charlotte?" The asian man persisted, eyes scanning every area of her face. She felt suddenly too exposed. Forced herself to nod again.

"Patrick Jane isn't here right now. He will be back soon, though. Would you like to come with me?"

Charlotte eyed the cop standing next to the asian man. Then looked around. She felt suddenly panicky. Trapped.

"No. I want to wait out here."

The asian man nodded. Looked over at the young cop who was staring at her.

"Do you think we could have a moment alone?" The asian man asked the desk cop. The desk cop looked over, looking surprised. Finally nodded. But he looked a little put out. He wandered off.

"Charlotte, my name is Kimball Cho. I work with Patrick." And he held out his hand. Charlotte scanned his face, glanced at the hand. Finally took it. Her heart was going so, so fast. Kimball Cho had a dry, smooth, warm hand. Strong grip, but not scarily strong.

"Patrick had to step out momentarily. He will be back shortly," Cho said, eyes still focused on her face. Charlotte nodded.

"I can get you set up in an interview room. One with a couch. You look tired," Cho said, and Charlotte had the distinct impression this guy was trying to be soothing. He didn't seem like the type of guy to talk much. Did... did he know who she was? Was he safe? Or did he work for Red John?

"I want to wait out here," Charlotte repeated, and hated the slight tremor in her voice. The idea that they would spirit her away back there, where she might not be able to escape, was terrifying. Cho's facial expression never changed. He nodded.

"Okay. Do you mind if I wait with you, then?"

Charlotte scanned his face, but his features were immutable. His face was one mask of stern professionalism. Finally she nodded. Cho came around the desk and joined her in the waiting room. Charlotte kept her eyes on him the entire time.

They didn't speak. They just sat, side by side. After a few minutes, Cho pulled out his cell phone, entered a text message.

"What are you writing?:" Charlotte asked, darting a look at his hands.

"I am telling my boss about you. And, hopefully, getting an idea of what time they will be back."

"Who is your boss?" Charlotte asked, eyes shiny-bright from the pot.

"Her name is Teresa Lisbon. She is with Patrick Jane."

"Oh," Charlotte said. What else was there to say? After 15 seconds or so there was a beep and Cho glanced down at the screen.

"What does it say?"

"I'm not supposed to let you out of my sight. They will be back in ten minutes."

"Oh."

* * *

-End of chapter, please review!-


	6. Chapter 6

**Title:** Charlotte's Web (Chapter Five) by Lexikal  
**Rating:** M for graphic violence and language  
**Fandom:** The Mentalist  
**Summary:** Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.

**Author's Note: Scroll down to read Chapter. **Thanks for the chapter 5 reviews. I messed up in Chapter 5. I had Cho meet Charlotte at the end of that chapter, even though I wrote him on a plane going to meet the exhumation team in Chapter 4. Damn it. I will have to fix that, have him come back. Not sure how. Damn it. Hope it doesn't mess the story up too much, I need to think of a way out of that mistake now, damnit. That's what I get for writing this thing when I am tired. Oh yeah, the mental image I have of this Charlotte is a little bit like a female John Connor from Terminator 2 crossed with Lisbeth Salander (the Rooney Mara version)- you'd get a kid that is oddly world-weary and street-smart, emotionally closed off and traumatized, but also strangely childish/childlike in some ways. Being "raised" by Red John would do a number on anybody. My version of Charlotte is not at all like the "hallucination" Charlotte that we see on the show, but that hallucination version is an idealized version, created by Jane's own subconscious mind. Ther eal Charlotte would have some major problems, trust issues and obsessions (at the very least). I looked up the gun information for the show on www dot imfdb dot org (internet movie firearms database). The reason I made Red John's primary weapon a Smith and Wesson SW99 9 millimeter is because the copycat killer (The character named Dr. Linus Wagner played by Zeljko Ivanek) in the series pilot uses that type of gun. I made the knock sequence Charlotte proposes 4-2-3 as a nod to my sister (who I am writing this fic for) because... well, it doesn't really matter why, but if we have any "mentalists" among the readers you may have figured it out. I have given Charlotte the personality and behavior of someone with C-PTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), which is a more severe form of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and thought to be a combination of PTSD and Stockholm Syndrome. C-PTSD forms in individuals who have endured repeated, prolonged life-threatening trauma which is almost always a result of human "evil". Examples of experiences which can lead to its development are extended stay in a POW camp, or living through a concentration camp, being raised in an *extremely* abusive household (one involving rape, torture, mind-control, etc not simply "regular" abuse) or being kidnapped and imprisoned (I remember reading a case of a yound woman who was kidnapped and kept in a small box with a manacle around her neck all day and rape at night). The behaviors associated with C-PTSD would appear more severe in someone who endured whatever trauma led to the creation of the disorder at a very young age and the behaviours become integrated into the personality. Some of the symptoms associated with PTSD are extreme anxiety, a sense of impending doom or expectation of dying young, feeling like something other than human or less than human, dissociative features and a sense that the perp or perps responsible for the crime are invincible (almost God-like). Anyway, I encourgae anyone interested in this disorder to research it on their own time.

* * *

**"Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts." - William S. Burroughs**

**"The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool." -Stephen King**

**Wednesday, October 30th, 2013 11:47 P.M. P.S.T.**

* * *

They were just getting back into the car when Lisbon got the text, a short buzzing of her phone in her breast pocket like a wasp or a bee or something that was neither but still had the capacity to sting, and sting deeply. Lisbon pulled her phone out and stared at Cho's message. So simple, so Cho.

_A girl named Charlotte just entered the police station. She's looking for Jane._

Lisbon blinked at the message, spared a glance over at Jane who was waiting for her to open the car and let him into the passenger side. His hand was bandaged with gauze wrap and he was holding a prescription script for broad spectrum antibiotics. He was still very pale, still covered in blood (now mostly dry). This entire day had been so bizarre and surreal and yet, here was this simple little message from Cho and it seemed more bizarre and surreal than anything she had yet encountered.

"Lisbon? What is it?" Jane said, seeing the change on her face.

"Just got a text from Cho. A girl is looking for you at the station," Lisbon said.

Instantly, Jane's features changed. He didn't even look like the Jane she had known for the last decade, not in the change that happened. He stuffed the script into one of his suit pant pockets and just stared back at her, mesmerized and adrenaline-charged.

"What is the exact message?"

"A girl named Charlotte just entered the police station. She's looking for Jane," Lisbon read dutifully.

"Text back that we are on our way, will be there in ten minutes. And that Cho is not to let her out of his sight," Jane ordered. Lisbon nodded. Unlocked the driver's door and leaned over to unlock the passenger door. Jane got in and stared at her expectantly and she handed him her cell phone.

"It's at least a twenty minute drive, Jane. And you're still covered in blood," Lisbon said as Jane took the phone. She could tell that he wanted to argue with her, but he was also still Jane. He knew that meeting his daughter covered in the blood of one of her companions was probably not the best plan. He nodded as she started the car, and they pulled out of the hospital's parking lot.

Lisbon focused on driving the speed limit and paying close attention to the road. It was times like these that people got into accidents.

"You're going to want to text Rigsby and tell him to put aside that change of clothes for you," Lisbon said after they had been on the road a few minutes. Jane nodded, in no mood to argue, and began to thumb in the message with fever-bright eyes.

"We don't know for sure that this is Charlotte," Lisbon said, before he had sent the message.

Jane sent the message and looked over at Lisbon, his face suddenly orange and lit up from a passing sodium arc street lamp.

"Yes, we do," Jane said, and there was no room to argue with that comment.

* * *

Wayne Rigsby was taking a nap on one of the couches in one of the interview rooms at the Santa Monica police department when his phone jostled him out of sleep. He pulled it out and read the message.

_Cho is with Charlotte right now. Be back in 10 min or so. Need clean clothes. - J_

Rigsby rubbed at his eyes, not sure if he was totally awake. Realized what that message actually meant and was suddenly wide awake. Earlier in the day (this day which seemed to be lasting forever), he had picked Jane up some toiletries and some random clothes to sleep in at a local Walmart. Not really pyjamas, but they would have to do. But, would Jane want to meet his daughter in sweat pants and a t-shirt?

Rigsby had the bag of stuff in the room, he went to it, pawed through it, frowned.

Sent back a message: _Got u sweat pants and tee shirt. I am wearing a suit. What size r u?_

Waited. Got back a beep. Read Jane's message: _I think your pants will work for tonight. And your dress shirt._

Rigsby nodded. Sent back: _I will see if they have showers 4 u to use_. When he was done texting Jane, he closed his phone and began to take his pants off, quickly changed into the grey sweat pants (ripping the tag off before sliding each leg in). He folded the suit pants up and stacked them on the edge of couch he'd just been sleeping on, did the same thing with the dress shirt (carefully sniffing the underarms before deciding it was okay). Decided to text Cho and get the basics.

After a few minutes of texting Cho, he texted Jane back.

_Charlotte and Cho are in front waiting room. Use back door. I will meet you._

Waited dutifully. The idea that Jane might stumble through the front doors of the Santa Monica police department wild-eyed, face and clothing stained with blood, was haunting. If the kid out front really was Jane's daughter, that would be a horrible way to make a first impression.

There was a beep and Rigsby glanced at the phone: _Okay_

Rigsby nodded, carefully placed his dress suit pants, belt and dress shirt into the Walmart bag with Jane's toothbrush, soap, razors, deodorant, shaving cream, dental floss and mouth wash and hurried out of the room to commandeer his colleague a shower.

* * *

Cho could feel the fear coming off the kid sitting next to him. She was small for her age (she had to be, what? Almost 16 if not already 16?), short, baby-faced. Her eyes, alone, told the story of her stolen childhood, haunted and fearful eyes, wary and distrustful. Cho knew this kid was Jane's daughter. She had her father's eyes, and even though she hadn't said much, Cho was certain she was bright. Very bright. But also, very wary.

Cho had seen the effect Red John had on people. All sorts of people, mindlessly, selflessly devoted. Yet this kid seemed wary, afraid. So, was this a trick? Was this kid- Charlotte- only acting scared? Or, much like her father, was she able to withstand Red John and his empty promises, see the bastard for who he truly was?

Hard to say.

Cho was almost certain the kid was high. She smelled like marijuana smoke and her eyes were glazed over and bloodshot. Interesting tactic, entering a police department high and looking it, high and reeking of marijuana smoke. Was that why the girl seemed so jumpy? Even so, though, why smoke drugs before entering a police department? Did some part of this girl want to be arrested, or at the very least detained? Was she, on some level, afraid of chickening out and was the pot self-medication? Or was it a trap, a way to look less intelligent, less controlled? So hard to say when dealing with anyone who had spent any length of time with Red John.

"I understand you want to wait out here for Patrick. But anybody can enter through the main entrance," Cho said, trying to work out the kid's angle. She turned feral eyes to him. Those eyes were too profoundly scared to be the eyes of an actress.

"I know. But I don't know you. And I don't know _them_," Charlotte said, motioning her head in the direction of the police officers meandering about behind the dividing wall like ants.

"When Patrick arrives? You'll go with him?" Cho persisted.

"Yes," the girl said with a quick nod of the head.

"Why?"

"Because he won't hurt me," Charlotte said. This was said simply, as if a self-evident fact. The Earth revolves around the sun. Grass is green. Patrick Jane will not hurt me.

"No. He won't," Cho agreed. Cho's phone went off then. Not a text. An actual phone call. Cho answered the phone.

"Yeah?... Yeah, sitting right next to me... Okay," Cho said. Put the phone away. Charlotte looked at him expectantly.

"They just got back from the hospital. Patrick is going to get cleaned up, and he will be right with us," Cho said. Charlotte nodded.

"_Patrick_," Charlotte said slowly, testing the waters. Cho waited her out. "Does he ever... talk about me?"

Cho nodded. "Yes. But he thought you were dead."

The girl nodded.

"He said that on the news."

"Yes. But it is also true."

* * *

Jane had quickly showered, towel-dried off, changed into Rigsby's pants (he swam in them, thank god for the belt) and the dress shirt, one of the t-shirts Rigsby had purchased him.

"Cho is with her right now? I thought he had gone back to Malibu, to aid the exhumation team?" Jane queried, turning away from Lisbon for a second to rub deodorant udner his arms.

"I thought so, too. Here, talk to him," Lisbon said, and handed Jane her phone. Jane plugged in Cho's number, waited for it to connect. Heard Cho pick up.

"Yeah?"

"Cho? You're in Santa Monica, in the police station? You're with... her?"

"Yeah, sitting right next to me," Cho said dutifully.

"We'll be right out. Don't let her out of your sight," Jane ordered.

"Okay," Cho agreed. Jane disconnected.

"It was him," Jane told Lisbon, handing her back the cell. Lisbon nodded. She would find out herself why Cho was here, and not back with the exhumation team.

Jane turned to face Lisbon, The blood was totally gone, he'd flossed and brushed and gargled, run a razor over his face, all in 6 minutes. His eyes still looked haunted, but no amount of soap or time spent under a shower jet would wash away that look. Only time could dull the look in those eyes.

"You look fine, Jane. I'll send Rigsby or Cho out to get your suit cleaned."

Jane nodded, but he obviously didn't give a damn about his suit. He'd initially buttoned up the suit shirt, frowned, unbuttoned it and left it open like a jacket, white t-shirt exposed.

"Jane?" Lisbon started, unsure of how to phrase this. "If... if it's not Charlotte... you'll know?"

Jane stared at her as if she was speaking gibberish. Finally nodded. Opened the door to the locker room and waited for Lisbon to exit first.

* * *

Lisbon could tell from Jane's body language exactly when he saw his daughter, when he knew it was her. They'd just turned the corner, entered the bullpen of the Santa Monica PD. He stiffened up. Even though his back was to her, Lisbon could sense the urgency in his body language. The girl hadn't noticed him yet. She was looking in the direction of the main entrance-way, a wary expression on her face. Cho caught Jane's eyes, nodded ever so slightly.

"That's her, Lisbon," Jane said softly, almost a whisper. Lisbon felt a strong chill run through her, almost an electric shock.

Jane's daughter was petite, grungy, pale with haunted owlish eyes, a lip-ring and dark blue jeans ripped out at the knees. Her knees, themselves, were scabby and scarred- the knees of a kid who has wiped out numerous times on a skateboard or BMX bike. She was holding a neon green backpack in her lap like a shield, and, like Jane, seemed to swim in oversized clothing. Lisbon could see Cho say something to the kid, then nod in her and Jane's direction. The girl got to her feet instantly, expression somewhere between panic and pain, eyes as bright and haunted as Jane's.

Jane walked around the front wall divider and entered the waiting room, Lisbon right behind him.

"This is Charlotte," Cho said, in what amounted to pleasantries, when Jane and Lisbon were within hearing distance and had stopped moving. The girl, all of five feet, looked up at Jane curiously. Jane, Lisbon could see, was unsure of what to do. Hold out his hand for a shake? Hug the girl? Lisbon could see that he desperately wanted to hug her, but was afraid of spooking her. Finally he settled for: "I'm Patrick." This said in a soft, careful voice Lisbon had never heard before.

Jane's daughter simply nodded. Her first words to them were not what Lisbon had been expecting. "We shouldn't stay here. It's not safe here."

Jane nodded immediately. Glanced a quick, meaningful look at Lisbon: _follow my lead._

"Where is safe?" Jane said, no hint of playfulness in his tone. The girl shifted on her feet, a small creature ready to run.

"Probably nowhere. But definitely not here. You have a car." The last comment was not a question.

"Yes," Jane admitted.

"Rental?"

"A rental," Jane allowed.

"We should talk in the car," the kid said, darting a quick look at Lisbon. Lisbon smiled at the girl awkwardly. She didn't know what she had expected, but this tiny, scared world-weary teenager wasn't it.

"This is Lisbon," Jane finally said, acknowledging his colleague.

"I know," Charlotte said back, and she tried on a small smile for Lisbon. It lasted only a moment before evaporating off her face. "You're on the television a lot," Charlotte informed Lisbon. Lisbon got the distinct impression that Charlotte wasn't used to smiling at people or making small talk. Charlotte looked as out of her depth as she, herself, felt.

Lisbon nodded back at the kid. What was there to say?

Charlotte looked back at Jane. Seemed unsure of how to say what she wanted to say. Sighed and tugged at her lower lip. Jane watched, frozen. Lisbon watched, not sure what was going on, until she realized the teen was showing off an old scar. Jane couldn't look away.

"You remember when this happened?" Charlotte asked, eyes locked on Jane. Jane nodded.

"You probably need to hear me say it. I was running at the pool and I slipped. Banged my bottom teeth through my lip. There was blood everywhere. Needed stiches. The summer before I... _left_."

Jane was still staring at the scar. He blinked, hard, as if coming back from that memory. Waking from an ancient dream, or surfacing out of a black pond.

"_Yes_," Jane said and there was a lifetime of meaning in that one syllable.

"After I got the stitches, you bought me a grape popsicle. Do you remember that?"

Jane's eyes went far away again. He didn't speak, but he nodded.

"You had a cherry popsicle. It reminded me of blood, when it started melting, so you threw it away. Remember?"

Jane nodded again.

"We should go now. Do you trust him?" Charlotte said, and jerked her small chin in Cho's direction.

"Yes," Jane said. "I trust him."

"Okay," Jane's daughter said, and threw a nervous look in the direction of the front intake desk, before turning and walking back through the front hallway. Jane followed after her, trailed by Lisbon and Cho. Lisbon stared at the small figure, a young-looking 16 year old dressed in grunge-punk threads with wounded, sad eyes. Lisbon found herself wondering what the kid had seen that had left her so jumpy, and more than that, how she had ever worked up the courage to contact Jane. When Charlotte reached the front doors she muttered under her breath: "I fuckin' hate cops." Then, remembered Cho and Lisbon were with her and darted a guilty look over at Lisbon.

"Sorry," Charlotte said.

Lisbon tried to smile at her again. "It's okay," Lisbon said. The kid nodded, reassured that she hadn't burned any bridges, and pushed the door open.

Lisbon glanced a look at Jane, but his focus was 100% on his daughter.

* * *

**Thursday, October 31st, 2013 12:12 a.m. P.S.T.**

Charlotte moved fast. She reminded Lisbon of a squirrel, alert and small and ready to run at the slightest movement.

"Which car is yours?" She asked Jane, totally focused on him, indifferent to the presence of both Lisbon and Cho. Jane pointed to the rental car, a silver mazda. Charlotte all but ran to the car and stood outside the passenger door, waiting. She looked terribly nervous, a soldier in enemy territory without a helmet or flak jacket.

"Lisbon? You'll drive?" Jane asked, but immediately Charlotte shook her head.

"No. You drive," she ordered Jane. Jane nodded, and Lisbon handed him the keys. Jane unlocked the driver's side door, got in, reached across and unlocked the other doors. Cho and Lisbon got in the back, Charlotte in the front passenger seat. Jane started the car, looked over at her. Opened his mouth. Closed it.

"What?" Charlotte queried.

"Put your seat belt on," Jane said gently. Charlotte nodded, pulled the belt across her lap and clicked it on. Looked over at the man known as Patrick Jane expectantly. Jane stared for a moment, face lit up by the orange street lamps, something close to awe etched in his features.

"We should go now," Charlotte prompted after a moment and Jane nodded and pulled the car out of the parking lot and onto the long stretch of macadam leading back into the city.

* * *

"Charlotte? Where are we going?"

"I don't know. Let's just keep driving," the girl said. They'd been on the road 7 minutes. She was staring out the passenger seat window at the passing ebb and flo of street lamp light and neon fast food signs. Jane caught Lisbon's eyes in the rearview mirror. Charlotte was watching Jane silently, formulating what she wanted to say. Finally, she spoke.

"What happened to your suit?" She asked, head tilting to the side.

"My suit?" Jane questioned, overwhelmed.

"That is not your suit. What happened to your suit?"

Jane's brain caught up to reality then. He let out a short sigh.

:"Did you get blood on it?" Charlotte pressed after a few moments, a few swells of orange light over her features.

"Yes," Jane admitted, darting a quick look over at the teenager.

"Marcy's blood?" Charlotte added, but it was more a comment than a question. Jane glanced back at his child. Nodded.

"Yes," he said. "How did you know that?"

Charlotte let out a sigh of her own then. Rubbed at her forehead like she was getting a migraine.

"People that know me have a history of dying," she said, and the voice was so plaintively genuine that Lisbon felt her own protective instincts rose up inside of her. From the look that passed over Jane's face, he must have felt something similar.

Charlotte stared out of the window for a full ten seconds, silent. Then: "Did she kill herself?"

Jane, when he spoke, was nearly whispering: "Yes."

Charlotte sighed again. Shut her eyes and rubbed at her head again. "I didn't make her do that. If that's what you were thinking."

"That's not what I was thinking," Jane said quickly, voice resolute.

"Okay. Good. Because I didn't."

"I know."

"I've never killed anybody." This was said in a lower voice. Childlike.

"Okay."

"I haven't!"

"I believe you!" Jane said, turning his head to look at his daughter. Charlotte stared at him for a long while, finally nodded to herself.

"Have you every killed anybody?" Charlotte said, then. Jane caught Lisbon's eyes in the rearview mirror. She was watching this exchange, as was Cho.

Jane turned his attention back to the road.

"I'm not a killer, Charlotte."

Lisbon considered this exchange. Did Jane feel like he was dreaming, too? This whole day had been so strange, and Charlotte was not what she had expected. Of course... what could a kid raised by Red John and exposed to untold horrors realistically be expected to behave like?

"You can take my fingerprints. You can run them. You can take my blood, too. It will prove who I am," Charlotte said, then, and turned her head to look at Jane again. Her irises looked almost black, the pupils were so dilated.

"I know who you are," Jane said. And it was obvious from the emotion in his voice that he genuinely believed the teenager sitting next to him was his flesh and blood. Charlotte watched his face, scanning it for something. Moments of silence passed. Finally Jane spoke.

"We will have to stop somewhere for the night. A motel, or some place."

Charlotte considered this and nodded. Jane could see her shivering.

"Yes. I know we will have to stop eventually. You should throw your phone away," the girl said, then, and turned around in her seat to face Lisbon. "There is a GPS locater in your phone. They can track your cell phone."

Lisbon was quiet, unsure of what to say. Jane spoke before she had to say anything.

"Who are they?"

Charlotte turned her attention once more to her father. Shrugged.

"Who knows. But they are in the government, in positions of authority, all over. They work for Red John, and others like him."

Jane blinked.

"Others like him?"

"Sure. You didn't think Red John was it did you? There are more like him, but I don't know their names. Technically, I guess he is a sociopath, right? They do what they do for kicks. There are dangerous people like Red John all over, not just him. Once you get into their world, I am not sure you can get out. And maybe it is better to be one of them than to be one of their toys. I am not sure." This was followed with a wild little laugh, almost a desperate laugh. Lisbon felt like someone had just kicked her in the stomach, hearing that flood of almost-panicked speech and that half-mad laughter. She couldn't begin to imagine what Jane was feeling.

Jane kept his eyes on the road, but Lisbon could see his knuckles harden on the wheel ever so slightly. Like he was strangling it.

Charlotte blinked again, a hard, nervous tic of a blink. Lisbon was reminded of a prisoner of war in that moment, with that long, hard blink. Like the girl was trying to wake up from a never-ending nightmare. How much of what Charlotte was saying, now, was accurate and how much was trauma? Paranoia that had developed after years of being at the mercy of a blood-thirsty maniac? How much of this, if any of it, was an act?

There were a few more beats of silence. The sound of zipper as the girl opened her backpack, pulled out a Little Debbie's chocolate pie, ripped the package off it. Began to take fast, nervous bites.

"Are you hungry?" Jane asked gently. Charlotte glanced over at him, instantly wary, and Lisbon could see the ever-present fear in those eyes explode like a flame hit with an accelerant. It was gone, that look of panic, very quickly, replaced with a dull, protective sheen. The teen took a few more savage bites before dropping the pie, half uneaten, back into her open backpack.

"No."

"Because if you are, we can stop. Lisbon? Cho? Are you guys hungry?"

Neither Lisbon nor Cho spoke right away. Lisbon was about to, when Cho said: "I could use a coffee. Maybe a Big Mac."

"Big Macs are from McDonald's," Charlotte said. Jane nodded over at her.

"I only eat at Taco Bell, Jack in the Box and Burger King. And usually, after it is dark, only at Taco Bell."

"Do you have a preference?" Jane coaxed, with that same gentle tone of voice. Lisbon had heard Jane use the same tone with victims of extreme violence a few times. Not often. Charlotte seemed unaware that her father had adopted an unusually soothing, gentle tone of voice, or if she was, she didn't mention it.

"I want a Mountain Dew Baja Blast. And they only sell those at Taco Bell," Charlotte said. Jane nodded. Tried a smile on experimentally. Charlotte returned the small, a slightly manic, uneasy look compared to Jane's moderate grin. Jane's smile fluttered away.

"I've been meaning to try one of their Cool Ranch tacos," Cho said from the back seat. Jane actually smiled at that, a real-Jane smile.

"Lisbon?" Jane said, darting a look at his colleague. Lisbon nodded.

"Tacos are good." Lisbon said, smiling awkwardly. Jane smiled back at her. The tension in the car was starting to lessen, just a little bit.

"Why aren't you back at Malibu, Cho?" Jane said, eyes scanning the highway for a Taco Bell.

"Yes. _That._ I lost my wallet at the airport."

"You lost your wallet," Lisbon said at that, somewhere between amused and exasperated.

"Yes."

Another pocket of silence except for the sound of the car. Then, from the passenger seat, Charlotte said: "Maybe your wallet was stolen. There are pickpockets all over."

Nobody said anything to that.

* * *

Jane found a Taco Bell on Santa Monica Boulevard that was still open, pulled the car into the parking lot and killed the engine. Charlotte sat for a long moment, just staring out into the night, at the bright neon lights of the fast food joint. She looked over at Jane, uneasy.

"It'll be okay," Jane coaxed. Charlotte didn't say anything, just continued to sit.

"We should go through the drive-thru," she finally said.

"Red John can't be everywhere at once," Jane said calmly. Charlotte sighed, sighed again, shot her father a look somewhere between uncertainty and annoyance.

"Do you have a gun, Patrick?"

Jane winced. It was there and gone almost instantly, that wince, but Lisbon saw it.

"I don't. Lisbon does, though. So does Cho."

"I have a gun," the teenager said, and pulled the pellet hand gun out of from under her army jacket. Jane stared at it, looked back up at his daughter concernedly.

"You do. I don't suppose you have a license." Lisbon wasn't sure, but she thought she heard a trace of sarcasm in that comment.

"It's a pellet gun. Not a real gun. But it will still kill somebody, if you shoot them straight on in the face," Charlotte quiped, and pointed the gun at her father. Jane didn't blinked, smiled just a little.

"Also faster and better than cyanide, if the shit ever totally hits the fan," Charlotte said darkly, and scratched her right temple. Her eyes were on her father though, Lisbon saw. Jane bit the inside of his cheek. He didn't look surprised, but he looked sad. So, so sad.

"What qualifies as shit hitting the fan?" Jane's voice was soft. Charlotte, done scratching her head, lowered the gun and replaced it in the waist band of her jeans.

The teenager shrugged at the question. Licked her lips nervously. "Hard to say. Situations have a way of developing. Better than being killed, though. One shot to the temple and it's lights out. Hopefully it never comes to that."

The message was clear: _I don't know you. I don't trust you. Don't attack me. Don't corner me, or hurt me. I have options._

"So... tacos?" Jane said, and under the sadness was unease. He was obviously trying to be light, Lisbon knew. But she could tell he was uneasy. Jane being uneasy, being uneasy-for-real and not acting uneasy to manipulate someone, was a relatively uncommon state of mind for Jane, but Lisbon was pretty sure she was seeing that now. Charlotte seemed oblivious to any change in Jane. She either was unaware that her father was on tenterhooks, or she didn't care.

Finally, Charlotte reached out and opened her door. Got out and stood on the tarmac, face limned with neon orange streetlamp light.

Cho and Lisbon got out, then. Together they went in, Charlotte in the middle of their group like the smallest in a herd of a wildebeest, Jane taking point.

* * *

Inside, the restaurant was more or less empty aside from a group of stoners, a beer-gutted man with a trucking cap eating alone and a young latino couple. Two young latino boys, about 8 and 9, were hanging around the napkin dispenser, faces dirty, both of them with twin buzz cuts. One of them was ripping the top off a packet of fire sauce and smearing it on the condiments counter with a stupid grin on his face. The young latino woman called out "Hector!" and they wandered off, stained Angry Birds tee-shirts straining over bloated little bellies.

Charlotte watched them bob away, scowling, muttered something under her breath about the kids not respecting Taco Bell. She walked up to the counter, followed by Jane, Lisbon and Cho.

The cashier asked for their order. Charlotte ordered first, a kid's meal with a Mountain Dew Baja Blast, cinnamon twists and a soft taco, and an additional order of Volcano nachos. She dug her Optimus Prime wallet out, pulled out a 20 dollar bill and laid it on the counter before anybody else could order. The cashier gave her back her money and Charlotte stood aside. Waiting. Cho ordered then, then Jane, then Lisbon. Everybody paying seperately.

They sat in a booth, Charlotte and Lisbon on one side, Jane across from his daughter, next to Cho. Charlotte kept her eyes on the doors, then the parking lot, eyes going back and forth as she ate, unable to relax.

The talk was light and somewhat strained. Cho sent a text to Rigsby, got back an axious "Where r u guys?!" and informed his team mate to meet them back at the motel and try to get another two rooms, adjoining. One room with two beds. Just in case. He wasn't sure what sort of set up Jane would insist on, but adjoining rooms or sharing a room seemed probable.

Rigsby sent back: "Ok. Got u. Will go to motel now." and Cho put his phone away, all-too aware of Jane's kid eyeing him nervously. Charlotte couldn't have looked more uneasy if Cho had been busy neuitralizing a bomb.

"That was Rigsby," Cho said flatly, eyes meeting Charlotte's, then Lisbon's. Lisbon nodded. Jane was staring at Charlotte, who was dipping her cinnamon twists in the cheese sauce on her Volcano nachos and carefully avoiding eye contact.

"He's going to meet up with us at the motel," Cho added. Lisbon nodded back. There was the distinctive noise of a soft drink being sucked dry. Charlotte rattled the ice in her cup, got to her feet.

"I am going to go get a refill," she said, the comment aimed solely at Jane. Jane nodded, kept his eyes on the child he had thought, until less than 24 hours ago, had been murdered more than a decade ago. Charlotte wandered over to the counter and refilled her cup. Took a sip, dumped some of the soft drink out into the soda dispenser run-off grate and added a bit of Pepsi to the mix. Took a sip from the cup and looked thoughtful, like a wine connoisseur.

Lisbon had no idea what to say to Jane, but obviously Jane had to be picking up on the fact that his kid was deeply troubled. It made complete sense and was to be expected.

"Do you think there are really others like Red John?" Lisbon finally said, voice lowered. Jane watched the teenager dump more of the drink out and add some fruit punch. He shook his head.

"I have no idea, Lisbon. I hope not."

Jane continued to watch Charlotte messing with the drink fountain, a faint, almost-sad smile on his lips. Almost inaudibly he said: "She used to do that when she was little." Lisbon glanced over, nodded. Smiled.

Charlotte reattached the lid, jammed the straw back into the cup and came back over to their table. At that moment, she was indistinguishable from any other grungy teenager in baggy, torn clothes Her eyes, still shiny and bloodshot, were starting to look tired, but there were no obvious physical reminders that Charlotte had been brought up by one of the most violent, infamous serial killers in American history. Jane smiled at his daughter wanly as she slid back into her seat next to Lisbon and stuck a cold cinnamon twist in what was left of the Volcano nachos cheese. She didn't eat the twist, just stared at it bleakly.

"You ready to go?" Jane asked. Charlotte's eyelids were heavy.

Charlotte nodded, took a long sip of her soda before abandoning it on the orange formica table.

"Don't want your soda?" Jane asked, nodding at the "swamp water" the teen had just filled the cup with. Charlotte shrugged and shook her head at the same time.

"Mind if I have it, then?" Jane continued. Charlotte shook her head no. Jane picked the soda up, took a sip thoughtfully.

"It's interesting," he said. He drained the rest of the cup, carried it over to the trash bin, and threw it in. Charlotte followed after him, back to the car.

* * *

The drive to the motel was mostly silent. Charlotte slumped in the passenger seat, backpack in her arms, eyelids narrowed to slits. When the car stopped moving, she seemed to wake up a little.

"Where are we?"

"A motel," Jane said simply. Charlotte was eyeing the place.

"We're all staying here, even your friends?"

"Yes, but in seperate rooms. Unless..." Jane trailed.

"What?"

"Would you mind rooming with Lisbon?" Jane said, dropping his voice a little, putting on an endearing smile.

Charlotte turned around in her seat. Looked at Lisbon. Lisbon smiled at the teenager, feeling awkward and overwhelmed. This entire day was so, so strange. It would make sense Jane would want his child to room with one of them, and her being the only "girl" in the group, it made sense he had chosen her. Still, Lisbon felt touched.

"You have a gun, right?" Charlotte asked Lisbon

Lisbon moved in her seat, opened her jacket and pulled her piece out.

"Is it loaded?" Charlotte was eyeing the piece with bright eyes.

"Yes," Lisbon said.

"Safety off right now?"

"No, the safety is on," Lisbon said, darting a look at Jane. Jane shrugged. Gave her a "go with it" look.

"What type of gun is that?" Charlotte asked, eyes on the weapon.

"Um.. it's a Glock 26," Lisbon said.

"You have a gun, too?" Charlotte said, eyes moving to Cho. Cho nodded.

"Yes."

"What sort of gun?"

"Sig Sauer P229," Cho said immediately.

Sensing this could go all night, Jane interrupted. "Charlotte? Why all the questions?"

"Want to make sure nobody has the same gun as Red John uses."

Jane nodded, features carefully schooled into relative nonchalance. "What sort of gun does Red John use?"

"A Smith and Wesson SW99 9 millimeter," Charlotte said, her words careful, exact.

"Okay," Jane said, shooting Lisbon a glance.

"You already probably figured that out," the teenager quickly added, looking back at over at Cho, then Lisbon.

To Lisbon, then: "What's your gun's name?"

"Excuse me?"

"What did you name your gun?"

"Um... I didn't give it a name," Lisbon said, smiling awkwardly. Charlotte sighed.

"You should name it. Guns are alive, you know."

"They are?" Lisbon said, hating that she sounded so patronizing. Charlotte didn't seem to notice.

"Sure are. They are living things. They eat fear and terror, and when someone gets killed by a particular gun? Their spirit goes into the gun, gets trapped in there, until the murder is solved."

"I didn't know that," Lisbon said, stealing another glance at Jane.

Charlotte reached out, touched the top of Lisbon's gun, petted it like it was a small, metallic animal.

"Their mouth is that hole in the barrel," Charlotte said, gently tapping the end of Lisbon's gun with her pointer finger. "Their genitals? Are the triggers and their offspring are the wound they make."

"You've spent a long time thinking about this," Lisbon said.

"I have. You should name your gun. Mine's named PJ."

"PJ... like your Dad's initials?" Lisbon asked softly, smiling a little. Charlotte shook her head back and forth.

"No, PJ like pyjamas. Cause I always sleep with it."

"Oh."

"Patrick never liked guns," Charlotte said, throwing her father a quick glance with a nod of the head.

"Right," Lisbon said, smile feeling strained.

"Have you ever killed anybody with your gun?" Charlotte asked then. The awkward smile on Lisbon's face dried up. She looked over at Jane for help.

"Charlie?" Jane said gently, tapping his daughter on the arm. Charlotte turned to him. Lisbon reholstered her gun.

"Yeah?"

"Why all the gun talk? That's hardly "bedtime" talk," Jane said hoping to lighten the mood, tone of voice indulgently dry.

"Okay," Charlotte said.

"You ready to go in now?" Jane prompted.

"Before we do we should have a special secret knock?"

"Why?" Jane said easily.

"Because, in case somebody wants to go to somebody else's room for something. So we know the other people haven't been intercepted by Red John. Even if you call through a door, somebody else could still be next to them, out of sight of the peephole, with a gun on them. We should have a knock for safety."

Jane looked at Cho, at Lisbon. Nodded.

"That's a good idea. What should the knock be?"

Charlotte reached out and knocked four times on the glove compartment. Waited a beat. Two knocks. Then three.

"Four knocks, then two, then three?"

"Yes. "

"Why 4-2-3?" Jane said.

"Why _not_ 4-2-3?" Charlotte returned with a small smile. "Randomness is key to staying alive, Patrick."

"I didn't know that," Jane said.

"Of course you did," Charlotte volleyed back, tilting her head. "You used to make your living exploiting everything in people that wasn't random. It's what mentalism is, reading patterns in people, because most people are exceptionally habitual, not really random at all. Being random is not only a survival skill, it's an art, and the only way to truly live without being an automaton."

Jane was silent. Finally: "I am not sure exploiting is the word I'd use, Charlotte."

"No offense intended. Everyone exploits others, just like we all feed on the bodies of others to survive, be they animal, plant, protist, fungus. You exploit others, and so do. I am exploiting you right now, if it makes you feel any better."

"How are you exploiting me?" Jane said, eyes shining.

"I am exploiting the fact that I am your progeny, your genetic link to the future and immortality, to be relatively certain that you will not kill me if I fall asleep in your presence or otherwise let my guard down. You are exploiting my relative ignorance of normal social rituals and my age to ensure I will not kill you."

"Why would you want to kill me?" Jane said then. The atmosphere in the car had grown thick as curdled blood.

Charlotte shrugged, indifferent. "I don't want to, but it is one of the key interactions with other living things. You kill them and feed on them, or you fuck them and try to create progeny. Since incest is biologically contraindicated, the alternative here is murder. And before you say the obvious: there are plenty of ways to murder someone and feed on them without physically doing them harm."

Jane was silent, brain clicking away, sorting his daughter's words out like puzzle pieces. Each word, each thought, was a piece of a giant puzzle that would form a picture of the life she had lived for the last decade. And the picture forming in Jane's mind upon hearing these words was very dark, indeed.

"We should go in now, okay?" Jane said after a moment. He needed to take some time to process all of this. His rage for Red John had never felt so massive. Charlotte nodded her assent, reached out and opened the passenger side door. Everyone else followed suit.

* * *

-CHAPTER END- That's chapter 6, please review. If you are reading and like this, review. What you like, what you don't like, random thoughts about this story, notes on symbolism in this story, whatever. Please don't be shy! I love reviews, they help me grow and are crack-cocaine for fanfic writers. ;)


	7. Chapter 7

**Title:** Charlotte's Web (Chapter Seven) by Lexikal  
**Rating:** M for graphic violence and language  
**Fandom:** The Mentalist  
**Summary:** Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.

**Author's Note: **Thanks for the reviews. Keep them coming. I don't know Spanish, I am Canadian. We don't learn Spanish up here in school. So I have taught myself a little, but if someone is reading this and knows I am butchering the language, please, my apologies in advance. I couldn't find Patrick Jane's birthday online, so I made it May 23rd, 1968. I made it May 23rd because that is the birthday of Franz Mesmer (May 23, 1734-March 5, 1815), the German physician who theorized that there was a natural energetic transfer between all animate and inanimate objects (animal magnetism/magnétisme animal). Mesmer believed a "life energy" resided in the bodies of all animate bodies (living things that breathe) and also that animate and inanimate objects (the planets and minerals for instance) contained a form of magnetism. To cut a long story short, Mesmer developed theories which became the basis for new techniques such as hypnosis, "magnetic healing", the laying on of hands, New Thought and Spiritualism. In France today, some energy healers are still called "magnétiseurs" after Mesmer's theories of Animal Magnetism, and the english word "mesmirized" comes from him. Because he was sort of the founding father of a lot of theories which became used to create different psychological techniques (hypnosis and self-hypnosis as applications sprung from his theories) I thought he was a perfect person for Jane to honour, by giving them the same birthday. In the colloquial sense "animal magnetism" is used to describe someone who is charismatic or sexy. ;) So it works on more than one level. The toys mentioned at the end of this chapter actually were released in 2003 and really do exist. You can look them up. And Charlotte's behavior is classic C-PTSD, in case anybody is wondering why she isn't "normal".

* * *

"Perhaps all pleasure is only relief." - William S. Burroughs

"Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war."- William S. Burroughs

"It is much safer to be feared than loved because ...love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails." ― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

* * *

"Guys!" Rigsby said brightly, upon seeing them enter the lobby. Rigsby's eyes immediately turned downwards, to the young girl amongst them. Jane's kid. Jane's daughter. _Charlotte._

"Charlie, this is Rigsby," Jane said by way of introduction. That was the second time he had called the girl "Charlie", a pet name he had no doubt used with his daughter back before Red John had come along and messed up Jane's life, Jane's family's lives. If Charlotte minded the term of endearment it was impossible to tell from her demeanour.

"Wayne Rigsby. Right. Hello," the girl said, letting everyone else know she had, at least, a basic understanding of them and their functions. She put out her hand and Rigsby shook it, a bit too hard. He reminded Lisbon of an over-enthusiastic puppy meeting a kid paying attention to it for the first time. _Down, boy_. Also, he was nervous. Only Cho seemed unaffected by Charlotte's presense. Jane was doing well, Lisbon thought, but was much more gentle in his speech, much more protective in his body language, than she had ever seen him.

"Um, so the room situation is this: 2 separate rooms side by side, and directly across the hall, we have one room connected to another. Two beds in one. One bed in the other.

"Lisbon and Charlie will be sharing, Rigsby." Jane said, looking over at his daughter to gauge her reaction. No reaction. Good enough.

"So you'll be in the single adjoining? And Cho and me, we get our own rooms?"

"Right."

"Okay. And the keys-" Rigsby said, and handed Jane a key, Lisbon a key. Cho a key. Charlotte watched the keys get handed out, a small, rueful smile on her face. Rigsby smiled at her nervously.

"We should go outside to tell him..." Charlotte said softly, darting her father a look. Jane nodded and began to walk back towards the front doors.

Rigsby followed, looking puzzled.

"Guys?" He said.

"Our emergency knock is this..." Charlotte said, and banged lightly on a street lamp pole. The sound was hollow and tinny, eerily empty.

"4-2-3? Emergency knock?"

"To make sure nobody has been intercepted by Red John," Jane said quickly, looking over at Rigsby. Rigsby nodded immediately, his eyes wide and saucer-like.

"We will change it at least once a day," Charlotte said, looking over at her father. Jane nodded immediately. _Whatever you need to feel safe, Charlotte, we will do. _

"Oh, I should probably warn you guys, in case you have any friends in local law enforcement..." Charlotte said, then, voice sounding a little amused.

"What?" Jane said, smiling at her pleasantly, mirroring her own amusement back to her.

"Before I left my apartment tonight? I shot all the creatures out. And most of them are... poisonous. Whoever enters that apartment first-or second- is at risk of being bit by something venomous."

Lisbon looked at Charlotte, stunned. Had to admit the kid's actions made a dark, violent sort of sense. But still... _Jesus_.

"No, I don't have any friends in the local PD," Jane said simply enough, as if the idea of someone entering and being bit by one of "Charlie's" deadly pets didn't bother him in the slightest. Lisbon shot him an incredulous look.

"_Really_, Jane?" Lisbon said under her breath, shooting Jane a dark look which he promptly ignored.

"I am pretty sure Red John knows I am gone by now. He tends to be aware of developing news stories," Charlotte said, and chuckled. An honest-to-God laugh. Jane didn't think he could manage a similar laugh. Didn't even try. The smile on his face felt forced now.

"Right."

"But he no doubt might still send somebody, to sift through my stuff, see if I have left anything. Although... yeah. He probably knows I am with you by now."

Jane stared at his child silently. He nodded.

"I bet he is pretty pissed off right now, don't you? Not sure he thought I'd go all AWOL on him."

Jane wanted to smile at that comment, he really did. But there was too much pain surrounding this for him to smile. This wasn't a game. This was his daughter, his baby, alive all these years and raised by a monster. No. He couldn't force a smile for this.

"He's probably very, very angry. Yes."

"I bet he starts killing again. I mean. Big time now. Baby lost his ba-ba and a tantrum is imminent." Charlotte's words were acid, her pupils huge in the gloom. She had a dark smile on her face, each tooth reflecting a little streetlamp light. Sharp little teeth, they were. Lisbon felt chilled by the words. She never thought she'd hear someone speaking about Red John with such a cavalier disregard for his abilities, and yet, here was Charlotte Jane-Ruskin, raised by the maniac, doing just that. Calling him a "baby" to boot.

Jane didn't say anything to that. Lisbon looked over at Jane. She could feel how much this hurt him. She knew Charlotte wasn't trying to hurt her father, just had no way to gauge what was appropriate and what wasn't. The girl's sense of what was appropriate, what hurt, what didn't hurt... had all been turned upside down and shaken.

"Um... _so_... you guys want me to show you where the rooms are now?" Rigsby said then, sensing the growing tension or maybe the way Jane's shoulders seemed a little too rigid. Rigsby the wonder-dog.

Jane's eyes never left his daughter's. This was her show.

"Can I have a cigarette before we go in?" Charlotte asked her father. He nodded back. She pulled a pack of Pall Malls from her jeans' back pocket, stuck a smoke in her mouth and offered Lisbon a cigarette. Cho. They both shook their heads.

"Rigsby?"

"No, but thank you," Rigsby said, unusually formal. Charlotte nodded. Pulled out a tiny orange lighter and cupped her hands around the cigarette, lit it. She inhaled greedily, blew out a plume of blue-grey smoke and smiled at Jane through the smoke screen.

"Honestly, it's like you people are trying to live forever, or something." Such a young voice, such a young face, and such ancient torment in those green eyes.

* * *

Rigsby had pointed out the rooms. He and Cho had gone off for the night, to sleep. Jane, Lisbon and Charlotte had entered the room with two beds. Charlotte glanced around, as if looking for monsters. Actually looked under both of the beds. Went to the little closet, pulled the door open. Nothing but wire coat hangers and cupboards built into the wall for socks and underwear. Charlotte went into the bathroom, pulled aside the shower curtain. Looked under the bathroom sink. Picked up one of the mini soaps, turned it over. _Red John, are you hiding under the soap?_ Put it back down. Came back into the bedroom, snatched the remote control off the bureau and turned on the television. Sat down on the bed nearest the TV. Jane watched her silently. Lisbon took the opposite bed, sat down. Jane kept standing. Wasn't sure what to say. How to act.

"You like movies?" Charlotte asked, eyes on the television screen. She had the video rental screen up and was scrolling through the available movies.

"Some movies," Jane allowed. Charlotte nodded, glanced over at Lisbon. Lisbon smiled. Nodded.

"Or are you too tired?"

Lisbon didn't say anything. Jane did.

"I bet Lisbon is pretty tired, Charlie." This said as gently as possibly.

Charlotte glanced over at Lisbon again, as if sizing her up. Nodded.

"Yeah. Okay. Nothing good on here except The Purge and I saw that in the theaters. If I go and get a shower right now, will you stay awake and guard the door?"

This comment was directed at either of them. Both of them nodded immediately. Charlotte nodded back, took her green backpack into the bathroom and carefully, almost silently, closed the door. Jane could hear the lock being put on. He waited a beat, eyes on the door. Until the water faucet turned on, the spray of the shower.

"My bet is she will be out in three minutes. Showering is an inherently vulnerable act," Jane said, walking over to Lisbon and sitting down on the bed next to her.

"Are you okay doing this? Watching her?"

"Yes. Of course," Lisbon said. Jane's eyes were scanning her face, a bit worriedly.

"She has... she might say things that upset you. Or... are hurtful. I don't know. I don't want you to get hurt, Lisbon."

"I am not going to get alienated by your daughter, Jane, you don't need to worry about that," Lisbon said. Jane glanced back at the door.

"She doesn't seem brainwashed by Red John. Not... not like the others."

"No," Lisbon agreed. "She has a lot of her dad in her."

Jane looked back at Lisbon, smiled a tender little flower of a smile.

"I hope that is it and that this isn't an act."

"Act? You said you know that is Charlotte-"

"It's Charlotte, alright. That's not what I meant. Why come back after all this time? Why now?"

"You think she might be... _what _Jane? Dangerous?"

"I don't know. But I don't want you to get hurt." His eyes were now locked on the door.

"Jane, I'm not going to get hurt. I don't think I could fall asleep tonight if I wanted to. And I'm a girl. It makes sense I room with her."

"Yes. I know. I just... something is wrong. Her behaviour is not normal." This last sentence had fallen to almost a whisper.

"Did you expect it would be?" Lisbon asked seriously. Jane, not looking over at her, shook his head no.

"No. That's exactly it. You'd expect anyone who has endured what Charlotte has to be traumatized, unstable... maybe have some antisocial traits. But I don't know the end game, here, or even if there is an end game. Did Red John send her to us? Or did she come of her own free will, and if so, why? Why now?"

"Maybe she started questioning where she came from? Or began questioning Red John, or her memories of you? Or..." Lisbon trailed. Thought about how she wanted to phrase what she wanted to say next.

"What?" Jane prodded.

"Maybe Red John wanted her to do something that she couldn't bring herself to do?" Lisbon said, and that sentence was filled with terrible potential.

"Murder," Jane said solemnly.

"Or murder... you," Lisbon ventured. She hated the sharp blossoms of pain in Jane's eyes, mini explosions. He nodded.

"He wanted you to join him. You didn't. He had your daughter, a piece of you, as his protégée for all these years. What better way to show a master your devotion and loyalty than by murdering your own father?" Lisbon said this in a rush, and shot a glance over at the bathroom door.

"So she would have sought me out, if the alternative was to live with Red John and... kill me."

"Possibly," Lisbon said, eyes darkening, darkening with pain for Jane, hatred for Red John.

"Or..." Jane prompted. His mind wouldn't let him go there, but he could see Lisbon had ideas his own mind wouldn't let be formed.

"Red John is theatrical. He likes to think he is smarter than everybody else. Just killing you might not be enough. Maybe... gaining your trust first? Making your own daughter gain your trust? What better way to dominate the both of you?" Lisbon hated what she was saying. Felt the need to say it anyway. How horrific an ending would it be for Jane to be slain by his own child after all of this madness, all these years of guilt and despair? And if Charlotte ever recovered enough to realize what she had done? She'd have to live with the guilt and despair Jane had lived with, thinking his actions had gotten *her* killed. Made a sick sort of sense. Poetic, in a hellish way.

Jane shook his head. Stood up. Paced a few feet away from Lisbon, paced back towards her, distraught.

"No, that's not it," Jane said softly, words barely audible. Lisbon just watched him. Watched him pace a few more lines.

"How do you know?" Lisbon said as kindly as she could.

"I know Charlie. She wouldn't be able to do that."

"Maybe this isn't the Charlie you remember?" Lisbon said, not unkindly. Jane glanced back at the door and she thought she caught a shiver run through him. But he shook his head again.

"No. You're wrong, Lisbon."

The water stopped then. Charlotte was done with her shower. This talk was over.

* * *

She came out fully dressed, even wearing her socks, shoes and army jacket. She obviously meant to sleep fully clothed, ready to run or hide at a moment's notice.

She sat down on her bed. Looked over at Lisbon, visually sought out her father.

"You're still here," she told Jane, and in that moment she seemed so factually obvious that she struck Lisbon more like a 6 year old than a 16 year old. Jane nodded.

"You wanted to talk to her about me," Charlie said, not bothering to phrase it as a question. She lay down on her bed, unzipped her backpack and pulled out her stuffed animal devil. There was silence for a few beats. Charlotte crossed her arms, lay her head on her arms. The devil perched at the head of the bed, a plush pet from cartoon Hell. She shut her eyes, as if testing out sleep, like a shopper in a grocery store testing out deli meat samples.

"That's cute," Lisbon said a bit awkwardly. Charlotte slit her eyelids open and looked out into the world, the place where that voice had come from.

"My devil?"

"Yeah," Lisbon said. Jane had walked over to the room's desk and sat down in the chair.

"His name is Bunsen. He plays Elvis," Charlotte said, and pressed the button on the toy's foot that triggered the music.

_You look like an angel_

_Walk like an angel_

_Talk like an angel_

_But I got wise_

_You're the devil in disguise_

_Oh yes you are_

_The devil in disguise..._

The music shut off then. Apparently it only played that bit of the song.

Jane reached over, turned the desk lamp on. Got back up and wandered over to the light switch. Turned the lights off. Charlotte shut her eyes again. Jane returned to the desk.

Jane, at the desk, watched her. Nobody said anything. Five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Was Charlotte asleep? Jane glanced over at Lisbon.

"I'll stay if you want to go and get a shower," he said in a lowered voice. Lisbon nodded, shifted herself off the bed and picked up her luggage bag.

* * *

Jane heard moans. Scared, feeble things. At first they filtered into his dream, a bizarre dream he was having of children with bird beaks instead of human noses and mouths. The children were being kept in wire cages over a pot of boiling water, and the bodies of some of them (human bodies apart from the bird-beaks) were floating on the top of the boiling, roiling water, like perogies that have finished cooking. In the cage was a little girl bird-thing and next to her was a crow, with bloody eyes sockets. The feeble little moans were coming from the little girl-bird-thing.

And then Jane was slowly coming back awake, into awareness. His head was on his arms, and he was sitting at a motel desk. He shook himself awake, then, and peered around. Lisbon was still asleep, dead to the world, in her bed, her covers over most of her. Charlotte lay on top of the covers, quietly moaning in her sleep, small feet in their converse all-stars kicking out jerkily. Jane got up and went to her, kneeled down. Put his hand on her shoulder. Tried to comfort her.

One of the moans became a strangely shrieky shout. Jane shook her then. The shout died down and turned into low, scared moans again.

"Charlotte? Wake up," Jane said, and shook his daughter a bit more forcefully. Her eyes opened then and she pulled back reflexively before realizing it was Jane who had touched her. Her eyes scanned the motel room. First Jane. Then the door. Then Lisbon. Lisbon was still asleep. Eyes back to Jane immediately.

"What time is it?" Charlotte said in a hoarse voice. It was the voice of someone who has screamed themselves silly, but Jane knew she hadn't screamed. Moaned. But not screamed. Jane checked his watch.

"Almost 6 a.m.," he said.

Charlotte nodded. As Jane watched, a drop of blood fell out of her left nostril. Then a drop from her right. Then her nose began to bleed in earnest. Charlotte's eyes bulged slightly, and Jane thought he heard a strange little moaning sound of panic as she sat up. Jane ran to the bathroom, grabbed a hand towel and came back with it. Handed it to his daughter. She pressed it to her face and the fear in her eyes lessened, just a little.

Jane said soothing things to her for the next few minutes. _It's probably the dry air. You're okay, Charlie. I get them too, sometimes_ (a lie). Made chit chat, but Charlotte was still half asleep, half-asleep with a bloody cloth pressed to her face.

"Why'd you wake me up?"

"You were having a nightmare," Jane said truthfully.

"Oh. Yeah. I know. But how did you know that?"

"You were making noise," Jane clarified. "Moans. Whimpering."

"Was I saying anything?" Charlotte said from behind the hand towel. Jane shook his head no. She seemed relieved.

Finally she pulled the hand towel away from her face. Stared at the blood soaked into the fabric like a bizarre Rorschach. Stared at it. Showed it to her father.

"If this was an ink blot you were being shown in a shrinker's office, what would you say this was?"

Jane stared at it. Charlotte was trying to get to know him. Maybe she wasn't employing the regular chit chat, but she was trying to gain insight into her father. Jane was touched, though his facial expression didn't change.

"It looks sort of like a frog to me. Maybe a toad. Some sort of amphibian after a large meal."

"I think it looks like a curled up armadillo. Well, mostly curled up," Charlotte said, and put the bloody hand towel down on the bedside table, under the lamp. Her eyelids were hovering at half mast, already. "I like armadillos."

"Oh yeah? What do you know about armadillos?" Jane said, smiling at his kid. He had used the same phrase on her as a little girl, whenever she claimed to "like" something, then had grinned as she listed off whatever she knew about the subject matter. If she hadn't known anything about the subject he had smiled at her and prompted "how can you like something if you don't know anything about it?"

"Superorder Xenarthra, same as sloths and anteaters. Their name means _little armored one_ in Spanish, and the name the Aztecs had for them meant turtle-rabbit, but I forget the exact name..." Charlotte's voice was lowering as she drifted back into sleep. "They can stay under water for up to six minutes. Giant armadillos can weigh up to 130 pounds and be the size of a small pig. The pink fairy armadillo is only the size of a chpmunk though. They usually have litters of 4 identical babies. They generally have low body temperatures, about 93 degrees. They are used to study leprosy because their low body temperatures make them susceptible. Also, people can get leprosy from them by handling them if they are infected in the wild, or eating their meat. In Texas and Louisiana... so you don't eat armadillo meat.. unless you want to risk leprosy..." Charlotte's words staggered off and then were none. She had fallen back to sleep. Jane went over to the closet, pulled out a throw blanket he had seen in there when Charlie had checked the closet out the night before, and came back over to her. He gently pulled the throw over her, careful not to rouse her again.

"I guess you know enough about armadillos to like them, then," Jane said softly to her as she slept.

* * *

Lisbon woke up at half past seven and blinked into the early morning light, screened by the tacky orange window curtains. Jane had gone across the street to the 7-11 and come back with a Super Big Gulp of Pepsi and an overpriced box of strawberry frosted pop tarts. He was sipping from his mammoth reservoir of soda when Lisbon sat up and blinked.

"Morning," Jane said. He'd been sitting and watching both of them sleep all night, except for the quick dart to the convenience store for his soda and breakfast pastries, and he looked it. He had been fine at first, but when he was paying for his items he had suddenly been filled with dread. Would he get back to the motel to find Charlie had run away or disappeared? Or that she had been killed for running away from her keeper? Jane had hurried back, heart in his throat, but like he had known intellectually all along, she had been fine, still sleeping on top of the covers with her thumb corked in her mouth and her devil in her arms. Jane smiled at the memory. His hair was mussed up and his eyes had that over-glassy sheen of someone who needs sleep.

"You were up all night?" Lisbon said, yawning tiredly. Jane shrugged. Offered Lisbon the box of Poptarts. Lisbon made a face.

"Charlie likes them," Jane said, eyes falling on his sleeping daughter. Lisbon nodded. Smiled.

"Did you always call her Charlie?" She asked softly. Jane nodded.

"She doesn't seem to mind," Lisbon confirmed. "Should I call her that?"

"If she'll let you," Jane said, looking over at the woman he had come to view as his partner. "But she doesn't know you, so Charlotte might be better for now."

Lisbon nodded at that.

"I'm going to brush my teeth," Lisbon said, still waking up, walking to the bathroom. Jane nodded, but he was still watching his child sleep, mesmerized. Her existence seemed to be proof of a God he had never believed in.

He knew that was a silly way to think. But he was thinking that, anyway. Lisbon watched him for a second from the bathroom door, smiled to herself, and gently shut the door.

* * *

The day got really busy, fast. Charlotte woke up and brushed her teeth, ran a brush through her naturally-wavy hair, washed her face with the little motel soap. Dug lip gloss out of her bag and dabbed some on, a little bit of mascara which somehow looked out of place on such a baby face. Jane offered her his gigantic cup of Pepsi and she shrugged and took a few sips. Saw the box of poptarts and took one when Jane offered, tearing off the foil wrapper with sharp, white little teeth. Rip, rip. The pop tart was all but inhaled. Then its twin was gone. Jane held the box out and Charlotte took another foil wrapped pair and ate those two almost as fast. Jane watched her eat, a rueful smile on his lips. She reminded him of a wild, skittish animal being fed by humans. Wolfing the food down without tasting it.

"You like poptarts?" Charlotte asked her father when she was done with her meal. He nodded, and to show her that he did, he took a pair of them from the box. Began to eat. Slowly.

Rigsby drove them back into the city twenty minutes later, stopping at McDonald's first so he, Lisbon and Cho could get breakfast food and coffees. Charlotte ordered a black coffee with extra sugar and sat in the backseat this time, wedged in between Jane and Lisbon. Rigsby was talking about a dream he had had the night before, talking while eating and driving, and Charlotte smiled a little to herself. Cho drank his coffee and eventually said:

"I don't understand why you are telling us your dream."

"I just thought you might be interested!" Rigsby said, sounding wounded. "I haven't dreamed I was turning into a wolf since I was a little kid!"

"You had dreams like this as a child," Cho said flatly. Not really a question. Rigsby shot him a look. In the backseat, Jane grinned, polished off the last of his egg McMuffin, leaned forward and threw the wax paper wrap the sandwich had come in into the paper bag with the rest of the garbage.

"Turning into a wolf is not boring! I'd say that is a frightening dream for a little kid to have!"

"Okay. It's frightening," Cho said, looking out the passenger side window.

"Oh yeah? What sort of nightmares did you have as a kid, then?" Rigsby challenged. Jane was still grinning. So was Charlotte, wedged in besides him, the same mischievously delighted grin as her father's stretched over her face.

"What sort of dreams did I have? Ever hear of the _Kuchisake Onna_? Slit-mouthed woman? I dreamt my mother was a Kuchisake Onna."

From the driver's seat, Rigsby snorted laughter. "You mean that Japanese urban legend? Asks you if she is pretty, and if you say no after you see her ugly face she kills you? How is that scary? All you have to say is she's pretty! You couldn't even come up with your own monster!"

"Oh, and you came up with the idea of a wolf?" Cho said dryly, glancing over at Rigsby for confirmation.

"Which one do you think is scarier, boss?" Rigsby said then, turning to look at Lisbon. Lisbon held up her hands, was about to say something when Jane said:

"Boys, boys... neither of them is very scary."

Sitting beside her father, coffee in her hands, Charlotte wheezed laughter. Rigsby shot Jane an exasperated look and turned back to the road, muttering under his breath. Something like "wolves are too scary". Cho smiled, took a sip of his own coffee. Jane, hearing his daughter's tinkling laughter, grinned in earnest. Delighted with himself.

Small pockets of time like this were candles in the darkness.

* * *

They took Charlotte to a forensic lab to be fingerprinted. All standard operating procedure in a case like this. But of course, cases "like this" were almost unheard of. Jane stood beside her as each small finger tip was pressed into black ink and rolled onto paper. The tech was gentle but Jane kept sending Charlotte concerned looks, as if having her fingers inked and pressed onto paper might somehow harm her.

Charlotte didn't look at her father. Her eyes were slightly unfocused, a bit glassy. The next stop was to a medical clinic for a blood draw. Small, basic looking medical lab with other people milling around with paperwork from their doctors. Charlotte's eyes bobbed around and over all the surfaces, richochetting BBs, and she seemed fine until she saw the needle. Then she pulled back. Fear bubbled up behind her eyes. Jane saw it. Even Lisbon saw it.

"Wait," Jane said, before the needle could pierce her vein. He bent down.

"You don't need to have blood drawn if you don't want. At least not right now."

His daughter was very determinedly not looking at the needle. She was doing her best to give off blasé vibes, but too much of the whites in her eyes were showing for the act to be compelling.

"No. You will want to know _for sure_. Then you will know for sure."

"Charlotte, I already know who you are. This is a technicality. You don't need to do it, if you don't want to," Jane said, body between her and the phlebotomist. Charlotte gazed down at her arm, already tied off with the rubber tourniquet. Charlotte was looking at her arm, at the vein bulging, ready to be pierced. She looked back up at her father. Eyes anguished. She obviously didn't want to go through with this. Didn't want to look weak, either.

Jane remembered back to the time she had cut her teeth through her lips at the pool, the summer before Red John had taken her. The way her face had gone white with fear, the way she had held onto him, smelling of sweat and adrenaline as needles were pushed into that lip and each suture was pulled through in the clinic he had driven her to. Eyes fluttering. How she had panicked later, when he bought her the popsicle and his own popsicle, cherry-red, had reminded her of blood. The sudden tears. Not during the injury, not even during the stitches. But later, the repressed emotions she hadn't felt then bubbling out. Crying over the dripping red of that popsicle. Charlotte had always been like that. She didn't get upset when most people expected it, instead, she "stored" up her sadness and fear and frustration and vented it all at once. No way would she admit weakness now, in front of him. In front of Lisbon, and the lab tech.

Jane reached forward, gently tugged the tourniquet off her arm. Gently pulled Charlotte to her feet. She had that same startled, scared expression on her face he remembered all those years ago. Trying to look tough, but scared out of her mind. His daughter had been phobic of blood her entire life. Had living with Red John only strengthened that phobia, or made her dissociative? Jane wasn't sure. Didn't want to do anything to her that would, in any way, tell her subconscious that she still had to be on guard. Not with him.

"What are you doing? I have to!" Charlotte said, almost a whine, but Jane was shaking his head no.

"Come on. Let's go," He told her, darting a meaningful look over at Lisbon. She nodded back at him. On the way out of the clinic Jane snaked his hand out and pulled one of the cheap dollar store toys from a pile meant for little kids who had been stuck with needles. At the door he handed the toy- a ring pop candy- to Charlotte. She smiled up at him, looking dazed, unsure, overwhelmed. What had just happened?

* * *

While Charlotte, Jane and Lisbon were doing their thing, Cho had gotten a call. His wallet had been found at the airport. Rigsby had been in contact with Van Pelt all morning. She had stayed behind in Sacramento in case Jane "turned up" locally and needed a team member, and had been out with the exhumation team all night, after Cho failed to come in. She was keeping Rigsby up to date on what was going on, and he was relaying the information to Lisbon. They had dug up the coffin of "Charlotte Jane Ruskin". The small, decayed body was in a local morgue right now, under flourescent lights, utterly exposed under the light. They had taken a mold of the teeth and were running them against Charlotte's dental records. They had also exhumed Angela Jane Ruskin and were fingerprinting her, running her dental records. Just to be Pelt had stayed with the little body the entire time, only stepping out to pee and coming straight back. She had tried not to look at it, but found her eyes kept darting back over to it, to take furtive glances at it, that little black shell of a child swallowed whole by the ground this last decade.

Back in the car, slumped in the backseat, face smooshed against the glass, Charlotte said: "What do we do now?"

Everything was moving so fast. Jane hadn't had much time to plan out the next steps of this journey.

"Now, I guess we go home," Jane said, looking over at Charlotte from the front passenger seat. Lisbon was driving. Cho and Rigsby were already at the airport, waiting.

"Oh. How do we get there?" Charlotte said, looking incredibly tired. No wonder. Jane felt like taking a nap himself. He felt exhausted. Red John was a mosquito, and he had been filling himself on the Janes for over a decade now. Jane shot Lisbon a glance for confirmation.

"Um, we're going to take a plane back," Jane said. "It's faster."

"Where am I going to stay when we get back? Where is home, anyway?"

Jane thought about how to answer this.

"We're going to Sacramento. That's where I live now."

Charlotte nodded at this. Sucked at her ring pop. Shut her eyes.

"Where do you live in Sacramento? Is it safe?"

Jane glanced over at Lisbon. How to answer that? Finally decided just to tell the truth.

"I live in the attic at the CBI. I think it's safe."

Lulled almost to sleep by movement of the car, Charlotte said: "No. That's not too safe." But she had fallen asleep. Or nearly.

"Lisbon should stay with us," Charlotte said, eyes closed.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Red John will be very mad right now. If he can't get at me, and he can't get you... maybe he will try to go for Lisbon. She means a lot to you. She should stay with us."

Jane looked at Lisbon. The look on her face told him she would do whatever was suggested to her at this point.

"Okay. Lisbon will stay with us."

"Good," Charlotte said, sucking loudly on her ring pop. "I like Lisbon."

Jane smiled over at Lisbon. She was grinning.

"Good. I like Lisbon, too.."

There was a pause. Jane thought Charlotte had fallen asleep when she asked: "Are they digging me up?"

Jane thought about those words. At first his mind didn't make any sense of that question. Then he understood what she was asking. All in a span of two seconds.

"We..." Jane started. How to phrase this. Finally: "Yes."

"I wonder what is going to be in the coffin. Maybe a doll? Or a chimpanzee?" The words were blurred with fatigue. "I would have put in a doll or a chimpanzee corpse. As a joke. If I was Red John."

"You're not Red John," Jane said, a little too tensely. No. There hadn't been a doll in that grave. Or a chimpanzee. There had been a real little child, a real little murder victim.

"I know that," Charlotte said drowsily from the back seat. "Red John is smarter than I am. No sense of humour, either."

"This..." Jane stopped talking. Forced himself not to sound anguished. "This isn't funny, Charlotte. It's not a joke."

From the back seat, Charlotte yawned. Shut her eyes and slid the Ring Pop back into her mouth.

Lisbon kept her eyes on the road. She couldn't think of anything to say right now. What was there to say?

After a minute of silence: "Red John doesn't kill children. At least not back then."

Jane turned in his seat, eyes blazing. "What do you mean?" _Red John does kill children._

"Red John didn't kill that kid. That one you thought was me."

Lisbon risked a quick glance at Jane. She could see a blood vessel standing out on the side of his temple. Could see his adam's apple bob as he swallowed, hard.

"How do you know that?" His voice was amazingly stable.

"That kid was already dead. He got her from a funeral home, before she was slated to be burned. Stole her out of the coffin. Nobody ever noticed her missing, or cared. When they give you back ashes, that is the leftover bones that don't burn up, not really the ashes. They're bones. They grind them up. That is what they give you in those little jars after they cremate you. Her parents probably got some ground up pig bones or something."

Jane blinked at that, hard. Like trying to wake up from a nightmare.

"How do you know that?"

"He told me. That kid died of leukemia. But... he did kill..." and her voice trailed off. The quality of her voice changed. Lisbon shot a worried glance over at Jane, but Jane was no longer paying attention to Lisbon, not even really aware of where he was. He was 100% focused on his daughter, the drop in her voice, the way her eyelids slit open, the change in her body movements, her body language. He already knew what was coming, what she was going to say, but he wanted to be wrong. Knew he wasn't wrong, but wanted- desperately- to be.

"What, Charlotte?" Jane probed. Charlotte shifted. Her eyes flickered fast, a sheen of what might have been the beginning of tears. There. Then gone. Her face was composed again.

"He did kill _her_, though."

"Her?"

"My mother," Charlotte said simply. "He killed her."

"Charlotte?" Jane prodded. Her name was enough of a question. She turned her focus on him, eyes blazing with her own anguish, her own fire. For a second, Jane thought he saw anger. Anger at him? It was hard to say, because that dancing emotion in her eyes was walled off almost instantly.

"I know he did. I saw him do it. He strangled her. Then he cut her lungs out. Little lung-y wings. The room smelled like hot, wet iron. Salty, hot death. The first red room I was ever in. Painted both their faces red and left you his sigil. It felt like watching a TV show on a black and white TV from far away. Except for the Sigil. That was in colour."

"The sigil," Jane repeated numbly. Lisbon's attention was 100% on Jane. Jane's was 100% on Charlotte, and Charlotte's focus was back in her early childhood, reliving the genesis of a never-ending nightmare. His voice sounded like someone about to faint. Good thing he wasn't driving. Lisbon doubted Charlotte had noticed the difference in Jane's voice.

"The bloody smiley face? I call it Mitchell the Sigil, but he doesn't think that's cute. You know what that means? The smiley face?"

"He's taunting us," Jane said when he found his voice. Charlotte shook her head.

"No. That the life of the person he killed is so ultimately insignificant that they are happier being dead than they were alive. Happy because Red John gave them his undivided attention while he killed them. Even if the way he shows it is with a knife, they still got the Father's attention. That's better than living an entire life and dying and never having him pay any attention to you, at all. Most people he never even bothers with. At least the ones he chooses are special."

Jane was silent until he was certain he could speak without his voice cracking. "The Father?"

"You know, like God? Because next to most people, he's like a God?"

Jane sat and stared at his child. Didn't want to, but couldn't help the flood of emotions and horror that were crashing over him. He wanted to choke the life out of someone with his bare hands. His eyes never left her still, half-asleep form but she had finished with him, with what she wanted to tell him, at least for now. She had slumped back in her seat. Face against the glass again. Back to sleep, cheeks flushed like a toddler's, warm flesh against cold glass like a bizarre science experiment. Creature in a jar. Little girl floating in bottle.

Back to sleep. A curl of golden hair pressed with sweat against her forehead. How could she sleep after reliving that?

When Charlotte dreamt, what the hell did she see? Jane watched her and after five minutes, he knew she was asleep. Her turned around in his seat, eyes unfocused, fuzzy. The word was a curse and a lamentation and a broken cry for help all at once, almost silent and yet, achingly loud: "_Jesus_."

Lisbon very carefully kept her eyes on the road, on the other cars, only glancing at him for the shortest of seconds. Wondered if she was dreaming all of this. Then some asshole cut her off and she knew she wasn't. They were almost at the airport.

* * *

It took nearly 7 more minutes for Lisbon to get them to the airport and find a place to park. Then, she and Jane sat in the car for a few minutes, not saying anything. Just absorbing. Charlotte was asleep, nursing on her ring pop in her sleep. Finally the lack of movement woke her and she cracked her eyes open, yawned. Looked around.

"We here?"

Jane nodded dully.

"I'm going to have a smoke," the teenager said, cracked the door open and crawled out of the vehicle. Jane watched her walk a few paces from the car, eyes instantly alert and wary, hunting for danger. She pulled the little red box of smokes out of her back pocket, stuck a cigarette between her lips, cupped her hands around the lighter's flame and lit the smoke. Watching her, Jane smiled sadly. So little and yet so old at the same time, but nothing in between. No youth. Just... extremes.

"Jane? You okay?" Lisbon said softly, following Jane's line of sight to his daughter. Jane turned to face her, nodded.

"I'm okay, Lisbon. Hate that she smokes."

"She's... very strong," Lisbon said softly. Jane nodded back his agreement.

"She is."

:"I used to smoke. When I was about her age," Lisbon informed Jane. hoping to ground him a little. He nodded at that. Charlotte's earlier comments had thrown him for a loop, and Jane wasn't easily thrown.

"I know, Lisbon."

"She'll be okay, Jane," Lisbon said gently. Jane turned sharp eyes on her.

"Will she?"

Lisbon glanced back at Jane's kid. "I think she'll be okay. She's feisty. She sought you out, didn't she?"

Jane nodded, but didn't say anything to that. Fifteen feet from the car, Charlotte flicked ash onto the macadam and looked back over at her father, at Lisbon. As if making sure they wouldn't evaporate. Jane smiled at her reassuringly and she smiled back.

"She's resilient," Lisbon clarified, glancing back in the direction of the teenager. Jane nodded to himself.

"And I'm guessing... stubborn?"

Despite his sadness, Jane smiled for real at that comment. "Oh, you have no idea, Lisbon."

"So, a lot like her father, then?" Lisbon said, grinning despite the mood. A real grin. It was the second time Lisbon had drawn a comparison between Charlotte and himself, and Jane knew why she was doing it. He, Patrick Jane, had lived through Red John's madness. If Charlotte was like her dad, that meant she would be okay, too.

Except, Charlotte had been raised by Red John, had been exposed to violent depravity at an extremely young age, been lied to, manipulated constantly and had feared for her life day in and day out since Kindergarten. That changed things. Jane did appreciate Lisbon's attempts to soothe him, however optimistic. But he couldn't overlook the obvious facts of the matter.

"I want to check her possessions. Make sure she's not... I want to check her stuff for poison." Jane said then, mind made up. Lisbon glanced over at him.

"I am going to need you to distract her, somehow. Get that bag away from her, maybe that jacket," Jane clarified.

"Jane-" Lisbon started, but now was not the time to discuss this. Charlotte was already coming back to the car. She had finished her smoke, flicked the still lit cigarette into the street to burn itself out. Jane reached out and opened his door, stepped out and went to her. Lisbon followed suit, scanning the outside of the airport for signs of Cho, or Rigsby. Someone was going to take the rental back and catch a cab back. Not the best plan ever, but this was not a commonplace situation.

* * *

The plane ride back to Sacramento was uneventful. Mostly. Charlotte was quiet, watchful, attention focused out the window.

"You ever been on a plane before?" Lisbon asked the teenager brightly. It was hard to speak to Charlotte. Treating her like a normal teenager felt wrong, but she wasn't a little child, either. Lisbon was unsure of how to act.

"Can we smoke in here?" Charlotte asked no one in particular and pulled out her cigarettes. Stuck one between her lips. Lit it. Lisbon could see so much of Jane in his kid. Lord help them all.

"I don't think smoking is allowed," Jane muttered under his breath. "So if you're going to smoke, be quick about it?"

Charlotte shrugged and nodded at the same time and sucked in smoke.

"Charlie's been on a plane before," Jane said, when it became apparent "Charlie" didn't want to answer Lisbon's question, for whatever reason. "Haven't you, Charlie? Disney World?"

"I'm not a baby," Charlotte said, throwing Jane an exasperated look.

"What's wrong with babies?" Jane said. Charlotte stared at him, deadpan, but Jane was grinning back at her.

"I'm a baby," Jane admitted, going for the throat.

"Are not. Stop smiling," Charlotte groused, but the corners of her mouth were turning up into a smile, too, now. She took another drag of her cigarette. She turned, looked at Lisbon.

"I've been on a plane before, yes."

Jane grinned at Lisbon. "See? Told you. She has been on a plane before."

A stewardess came by then, looking annoyed.

"Uh, miss? No smoking on the plane!"

Charlotte stared at the young woman blankly. Tilted her head. Jane watched her, amused.

"Did you hear me? Put that out, please!"

"_No hablo ingles_," Charlotte said in a faux-Mexican accent. Lisbon cringed but she could feel Jane grinning stupidly away beside her. Charlotte was in the window seat, Lisbon in the middle, Jane on the aisle seat, the protector of the group. Charlotte took another drag and blew it out slowly, a look of confusion on her face. The stewardess turned to Jane, obviously catching the family resemblance.

"Sir?"

"I'll tell her. _Charlotte. Apagar tu cigarrillo. Si_?" (Put out your cigarette. Okay?)

Charlotte widened her eyes. "_No fumar_?" (No smoking?)

"_No, no en el avión_." Jane said conversationally. (No, not on the plane.)

"_¿Por qué es eso?_"Charlotte shot back in fluent Spanish, taking another puff of her cigarette. (Why is that?)

"_No me preguntan! No es mi regla_." (Don't ask me. It's not my rule.)

"Sir!" The stewardess snapped, sounding utterly exasperated. Jane looked over at her, lifted a finger to indicate that she should give him a few more seconds, feigned an awkward smile. Charlotte reached forward, dropped the cigarette into the empty pepsi can she had been using as an ash can and widened her eyes innocently.

The stewardess stormed away, muttering.

Lisbon turned to Jane, turned to Charlotte. Both wore almost identical, evil grins.

"What the hell did I just witness?" Lisbon said, looking amazed. "You know what? Don't tell me. This... whatever you do, Jane. It's genetic?"

Both grins grew even bigger at that.

"I've been trying to tell you that for years, Lisbon." Jane said, still grinning away.

* * *

They got a taxi back to the CBI. Charlotte seemed to stiffen up when she saw the place. Jane took notice of her reaction, but didn't quiz her on it. Jane stood next to her as Lisbon led them in. Showed them their offices.

"That's Rigsby's desk. That's Cho's," Jane said, pointing out their workspaces with his finger. Charlotte nodded.

"Van Pelt works on the computer, there," Jane elaborated.

"Where is your desk?" Charlotte asked Lisbon.

"Lisbon doesn't just have her own desk, she has an entire office. It's over there-" Jane said, pointing at Lisbon's office. Charlotte turned to look.

"You have your own office?" Charlotte clarified. Lisbon nodded.

"So you can lock annoying people out of it when you're trying to work?" Charlotte asked, feigning innocence. Lisbon's face split into a grin. Jane scratched the back of his head.

"I suppose I could. Do you want to see it?"

"Sure. Where's your desk, Patrick?" Charlotte said, turning to look at her father.

"They wouldn't give me one. But that is my couch," Jane allowed, jerking his head in the direction of the brown leather bridgewater. Charlotte walked over to it. Inspected it.

"Looks like the couch we had in the living room," Charlotte said, poking it like a sleeping beast. She sat down on it, tested the cushions by bouncing on them. Laid back and crossed her feet. Shut her eyes. Laced her fingers together on top of her chest. Lisbon looked over at Jane and raised her eyebrows. Laying on the couch was a mini-Jane. Female and punk but otherwise...

Charlotte sat up and opened her eyes.

"This is the couch from the living room, Patrick."

Jane looked down at her. Nodded. "Yes."

"You moved the couch from the living room here?"

"I did," Jane said.

"Why?"

"I... didn't you want to see Lisbon's office?"

Charlotte slit her eyes. "You're evading the question."

"It's a comfortable couch. Lisbon?"

Lisbon nodded. Smiled down at Charlotte. Held out her hand. Charlotte took it, stood up. Saw something that made her stop. She was looking at Jane's shoes.

"Are those the shoes I got for you? The last birthday you had... when I was home?"

Jane glanced down at his shoes. Nodded.

"You kept them all these years?"

"Yes," Jane said.

"They weren't very expensive shoes, Patrick. 4 months allowance at 5 bucks a week. Why did you keep them?"

Jane stared at his daughter. Smiled a small little small. Blinked. _Isn't it obvious, Charlotte? _No words were nodded.

"Did... did you keep anything else? Any of my stuff?" Charlotte ventured, obviously hoping he had. Lisbon watched Jane carefully.

"Yes," Jane said again, and nodded.

"Really? What did you keep?"

"All of it."

"Really? You kept it all? Even my bed?"

Jane nodded.

"Even that jointed pegasus from Germany?" Charlotte ventured.

Jane nodded again. Still had that small, pleasant little smile on his face.

"And it's all in the CBI attic upstairs?" Charlotte said, looking towards the ceiling.

"No. It's back at the house. In the attic."

"The house? You kept the house, too? In Malibu?" Charlotte sounded incredulous.

"I did."

"But... you live in the CBI attic?" Charlotte said, looking over to Lisbon for help. Lisbon made an awkward-closed-mouth-smile.

"I needed a place to hunt Red John. This was more convenient."

"But..." Charlotte trailed. Sighed. "I am going to live in the CBI attic with you now?"

Jane scratched the back of his head again.

"Until we work out something more permanent. We can go to a motel if you want?"

Charlotte shook her head. Looked over at Lisbon.

"Is there space for Lisbon in the attic? How big is it?"

"Uh..." Jane trailed, smiling just a little. "Maybe a motel is better, for now."

Charlotte nodded. She was looking at Jane's shoes again. Scuffed shoes, polished repeatedly. New soles to replace the old ones that had worn out ages ago. Her eyes rose to his face, scanned his face. Settled on his sad, haunted eyes. Smiling eyes. Sad eyes. Suddenly, everything in her world was covered with a sheen of tears. Lisbon saw it. Knew Jane had, too.

"Charlotte-" Jane murmured, stepping forward to hug her, but she immediately stepped back. Dropped her eyes to his shoes. Her chest rose and fell with effort, with barely restrained emotion. She wouldn't look him in the eyes anymore. Lisbon saw that the girl was near tears. Near full on crying. She took a deep breath, her hands turned to fists, and you didn't need to be a mentalist to figure out she was struggling to control her breathing. She didn't want Jane's love right now. No. Tenderness would make her cry. Lisbon knew how she felt, because Lisbon had been the same. Was the same, still. As was Jane. They all mourned in private.

"Is there a bathroom around here?" Charlotte said, eyes focused on the hardwood floor of the bullpen. Jane was watching her closely, but he didn't speak. Lisbon caught his eyes and he nodded to her.

"Yeah, there is," Lisbon said, infinitely gentle. Charlotte nodded to confirm she'd heard, and with that nod a tear shook out of her eye and fell to the ground. Left a bright, wet drop on the floor. Charlotte stared at it. Rubbed it away with the sole of her right all-star. Traitorous tear.

"Where?" Charlotte said, still staring at the floor. Her eyes were slits now. If she opened her eyelids much, the tears would fall out. She knew it. Lisbon knew it. Jane knew it. She wouldn't let them fall, anyway.

"It's, um.. it's down the hall? The way we came? Do you want me to show you?" Lisbon said, still gentle. Her voice was cotton batting, as careful as it ever got. Charlotte shook her head, just a little.

"No, thank you. I can find it. _Thank you_." And with that, she was walking away from them, head lowered, hands turned into fists at her side. No doubt her fingernails were leaving little crescent-moon shaped cuts on those slender palms.

Lisbon watched her go, ruefully.

"Should I go with her?" She asked Jane, but Jane's eyes had turned sad, now, too.

Jane shook his head. Sighed. An actual sigh.

"It wouldn't do any good, Lisbon. Charlotte never liked crying in front of others. If somebody saw her cry, that made her cry more. You know?"

Lisbon nodded. She knew exactly what Jane was talking about. She'd been the same her entire life. Intensely private, devoted to looking tough and together, always. How much stronger was that desire for Charlotte, who had been raised by Red John?

"I should have changed my shoes. I wasn't thinking-"

"_Jane_-" Lisbon cut him off. He looked, in that instant, almost as small and upset as Charlotte had. Lisbon hugged him. He went rigid at first. Then let her.

* * *

Charlotte found the womans' room, pushed the door open. Immediately locked the door. Walked over to the stalls, pushing each stall door in, checking. She was alone. She went back to the bank of sinks at the front, stared at her tear-glazed eyes in the scarred mirror. Bloodshot, glassy. Her skin looked a little too oily, hair more messy than usual.

"Christ, you look a mess," Charlotte told her reflection. Since getting on her own, away from Patrick and Lisbon, the urge to cry was lessening. Charlotte was relieved. She blinked her eyes, rubbed furiously at them. Turned the cold water on and splashed cold water on her face, ran her wrists under it, back and forth, back and forth. Cold water was good for calming people down, especially if you ran your wrists under it. It lowered blood pressure. It lowered pulse rate. It lowered body temperature. It was a physical thing, impossible to resist. When a person was near-tears sad- or stressed- their pulse rate went up. So did their blood pressure, and their body temperature. There were stress hormones which were released in tears, emotional tears, but tears also showed others you were weak, and for that reason they made Charlotte angry on an instinctive level. If you were sad, if you were hurting, you were weak. Charlotte ran her wrists under the water, forced her breathing to become slow and even again. So Patrick had kept those shoes. So what. It didn't prove a damn thing. Except that he had kept them. That, in and of itself, meant nothing.

She kept her wrists under the water until they began to prickle, felt numb. The temperature of the human body became elevated when the human animal was under stress. The body temperature tended to drop when people shut down, when they became depressed, but when they were stressed, the core temperature, as a general rule, became elevated. During a panic attack, the extremities felt cold as blood was pumped to the vital organs, but chronic, insidious stress raised it. Cold water helped. Likewise, for people with chronic, low-level depression, artificially raising the body temperature in conjunction with sunlight therapy was proven to be beneficial. Charlotte ran these facts through her mind. Imagined the urge to cry as a toxin, a poison, that she had inhaled. Exhaling it was getting rid of the poison. The sound of the water was helping. That soothing gray nothing sound of water through old pipes.

When the urge to cry had almost gone, Charlotte turned the water off. Dried her face on the front of her shirt, rubbed her hands on the sides of her jeans and pulled out her box of Pall Malls. Stuck a smoke in mouth and lit it, blowing the smoke directly into her own reflection. The cigarette was helping, too. Nicotine withdrawal was a bitch. Low blood sugar. Nicotine withdrawal caused low blood sugar, and low blood sugar caused mood swings. Low blood sugar was one of the main reasons people attempting to quit smoking so often failed. They got blood sugar crashes more often than expected, as nicotine told the pancreas to release sugar. When that nicotine stopped coming in, your blood sugar fell. It started after a few hours, and just cutting back could cause it. An easy was to remedy these crashed was to eat high protein snacks at scheduled intervals to keep the blood glucose level as stable as possible. Or to start smoking again. Either one was a good choice.

That's all this was. All this was, this moodiness, the sudden urge to cry like a little whiny baby. Nicotine withdrawal. Low blood sugar.

Simple.

But then, just like that, she was remembering. _Her mother holding her hand as they strolled through a mall._

_"I thought you were saving your money for a Celebration Castle?" Mommy was kneeling down. The Celebration Castle with the baby Pink Sunsparkle. Charlie nodded. She had been saving her money for the celebration castle for her My-Little-Ponies. She was carrying around Gobbles, her piggy bank. Daddy had laughed so hard when she had told him the name of the bank was Gobbles. Had told her that sounded more like a name for a turkey. She had explained Gobbles was named that because he gobbled all the money. He had laughed again. Told her it was a good name, then._

_Mommy had offered to buy her a present for Daddy, for his birthday. May 23rd. It was a week away. Daddy would be turning 35 in one week. 35 was a huge number. He deserved something special for making it to that age. Charlotte wasn't sure, but she didn't think it was easy to get to be 35. That was a lot of days you had to go through, a lot of work. That was her age multiplied by 7. _

_"Charlie, Daddy doesn't expect you to spend your allowance on him. Why don't you get him a card, and we can get him some chocolates? Okay? And draw him a picture, maybe? And I'll buy a nice frame for it?"_

_She shook her head._

_"No. A pair of shoes. I am getting him a nice pair of shoes. For the big three-five. Because everybody needs to walk, and you need shoes to walk in a city."_

_"Shoes are expensive, Charlie-" Mommy was talking, trying to talk her out of it, but Mommy had a huge smile on her face. Trying to "dissuade" her, Daddy would have said. But she was not easily dissuaded. She was stubborn, just like her Daddy. It was a trait they both had. It was something called congenital. _

_She wandered into the shoe store. A nice shoe store for men only. All leather shoes. A fancy place. She couldn't read the sign, but had seen this place several times before. She marched up to the sales clerk and he smiled down at her._

_"Can I help you?" He asked her._

_"I want to buy my Daddy a pair of leather shoes. For his birthday. It's the big three-five."_

_"Wow, that's quite an important birthday," the man behind the sales desk said, and his smile got even bigger._

_"He likes leather shoes," Charlotte insisted. Mommy came up behind her, then, and she had a smirk on her face, similar to Daddy when she was saying something that made him want to laugh and he was trying not to laugh. It wasn't funny. Nothing funny about a good pair of shoes._

_Adults were strange sometimes._

_"Do you know your Daddy's shoe size?" The man asked her, coming around and bending down. That was another thing adults sometimes did. Bent down. Like your eyes weren't good enough to see them if you looked up at them. _

_Charlotte sighed. Shook her head. The man glanced over at Mommy._

_"Mens' 10, I think," Mommy said. But Charlotte sighed. "I think" was a guess, and a guess wasn't good enough when it came to shoes. Or birthday presents. A guess meant you didn't know, and if you didn't know, you could make mistakes. Making mistakes when it came to birthdays was a recipe for disaster. You could ruin them that way. Daddy, he claimed to "guess" a lot, but they weren't really guesses. His guesses were mostly knows that he was pretending weren't knows. He was good at paying attention, and good at remembering whatever he paid attention to. He was good at deduction, which was a fancy word for putting a bunch of things you observed- or saw- together and figuring out the most likely reasons for what you saw. For instance, if someone had scratches on their hand and that same person was buying Friskies cat food, they probably had a cat, or looked after a cat. Far less likely was the "deduction" that they had scratched their own hand and liked to eat cat treats instead of potato chips or peanuts or something._

_"I traced his foot while he was sleeping," Charlotte said, and pulled a folded piece of notebook paper out of her Osh Kosh B'gosh pocket. She had planned this very carefully. There, on the piece of paper, was Daddy's foot, outlined in green crayola crayon. Charlotte handed it to the shoe salesman and smiled hopefully._

_Mommy stared at the paper, then the man. Then Mommy began to laugh. The shoe salesman laughed a bit too, but not mean laughter, so Charlotte let it pass without comment._

_"Can you tell his foot size from that tracing?" Charlotte asked the man, hoping to make him stop laughing. He looked like he was biting his cheek. Mommy muttered something that sounded a lot like "Jesus, Charlie" but her eyes were sparkling._

_The man nodded. Took out a little ruler that was all rolled up inside a metal shell, and measured the tracing, from the top of the big toe to the end of the heel. Measured the width of it, too. _

_"It's good you brought this in. Your Daddy is a size 11."_

_"Does that mean he has big feet?" Charlotte asked. The man grinned widely._

_"A lot bigger than yours. Do you know how much money you want to spend on these shoes?" The man asked, and glanced at Mommy. She nodded a message to him and Charlotte sighed._

_"I want to spend all this money. But you can't let my mom help pay for it. It has to be this money, or the gift is not really from me," Charlotte explained, and unscrewed Gobbles' nose. She began to pull 1 and 5 dollar bills out. Counted them out on the counter slowly. Then shook out the coins. The man helped her count._

_"89.53. That's a lot of money," the man said. Charlotte nodded._

_"I have been saving up my allowance for 4 months now."_

_"Four months?! How old are you?"_

_"I am 5 years and 7 months old. And what day is it?"_

_"Wow. So you have been saving up for a long, long time, then."_

_"Yes."_

_"And you're sure you want to spend all this money on shoes for your Daddy?"_

_"Yes."_

_"Okay. That is... your Daddy is going to be very impressed, I think."_

_"Why impressed?"_

_The man just smiled. Scratched his head like he was confused or didn't know what to say._

_"Do you know what sort of shoes you want to get for your Daddy?"_

_"Brown shoes."_

_"Brown shoes," the man said, nodding his head. "Do you know what sorts of brown shoes?"_

_"Brown leather shoes," Charlotte clarified._

Charlotte stared at herself in the mirror. With the memory came the emotions. The annoyance she had felt at being laughed at. The sight of her Daddy, opening the shoebox and pulling each one of them out, the huge grin on his face. She hadn't had enough money to buy him a card so she had made him one, instead, and wrapped the shoe box in the Sunday funnies. Mommy explaining how Charlie had spent all her money on those shoes. Stating that fact several times, even though Patrick had obviously heard her properly the first time. How her father had pulled her into a hug and kissed the top of her head.

The surge of sadness came back then. He was still wearing those exact same shoes. Ten years later, he still was wearing them. Jesus. Let go, Patrick.

"Stop thinking about this, Charlie," the teen told herself, looking at herself in the mirror. Her cigarette had burned down to almost nothing. She took a drag and then stubbed it out in the sink. Sniffled. Pulled off her backpack and riffled through it for some of the Little Debbie chocolate pies.

Her blood sugar was obviously still low.

* * *

(That's it for this chapter, please review)


	8. Chapter 8

**Title:** Charlotte's Web (Chapter Eight) by Lexikal  
**Rating:** M for graphic violence and language  
**Fandom:** The Mentalist  
**Summary:** Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.

**Author's Note: **I am going to try and change the summary slightly and see if that yields more story-views. Thanks for the reviews. I wasted quite a bit of time hunting down images of the CBI attic space Jane lives in to make it not only true to the show but to show the reader just how aware of her surroundings Charlotte is, how she always remains on guard.

* * *

"Panic is the sudden realization that everything around you is alive."

― William S. Burroughs, Ghost of Chance

"Who's they?" He wanted to know. "Who, specifically, do you think is trying to murder you?"

"Every one of them," Yossarian told him.

"Every one of whom?"

"Every one of whom do you think?"

"I haven't any idea."

"Then how do you know they aren't?"

"Because..." Clevinger sputtered, and turned speechless with frustration.

Clevinger really thought he was right, but Yossarian had proof, because strangers he didn't know shot at him with cannons every time he flew up into the air to drop bombs on them, and it wasn't funny at all."

― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

"I told myself: 'I am surrounded by unknown things.' I imagined man without ears, suspecting the existence of sound as we suspect so many hidden mysteries, man noting acoustic phenomena whose nature and provenance he cannot determine. And I grew afraid of everything around me – afraid of the air, afraid of the night. From the moment we can know almost nothing, and from the moment that everything is limitless, what remains? Does emptiness actually not exist? What does exist in this apparent emptiness?"

― Guy de Maupassant, Complete Works

* * *

**Thursday, November 1st, 2013 2:16 P.M. P.S.T.**

"Would you... should I go check on her?" Lisbon asked, darting a look at Jane. He was sitting on the couch, eyeing the hallway his daughter had disappeared down. Charlotte had been in the bathroom at least ten minutes, and Jane had a look of anxiety growing on his features. He didn't want to crowd her. He also didn't want to let her out of his sight for more than a few minutes. Tough position to be in, for both of them.

Jane caught her eyes and nodded.

"I'll come with you," he said, and got up off his couch.

Lisbon pushed on the bathroom door. It caught. Locked. She knocked lightly. Nothing. Shot Jane a look. Jane sighed, tried knocking himself.

"Charlotte?" He said, and his voice suddenly sounded like the voice of someone on the verge of a panic attack. Someone trying, and failing, to keep their anxiety under wraps, keep their shit together.

There was no answer.

"Charlotte?!" Jane repeated, a little more forcefully. There was the sound of running water.

"Uh... yeah?" The voice behind the door said. Still with the traces of upset, but more in control now.

"You okay?" Jane said. Stupid question really. Who could possibly be okay in a situation like this? What he really meant is: are you ready to rejoin us? A beat.

"Yeah."

"Okay. Do you want to come out?"

"Just a second..." Charlotte mumbled. There was the sound of paper towels being tugged out of the paper towel dispenser. The sound of paper rustling, then paper being (almost certainly) thrown away into the garbage. A beat. The sound of the deadbolt being unlocked. The door opened. Both Jane and Lisbon could smell cigarette smoke.

Jane seemed not to notice, but of course he had noticed, he noticed everything. Lisbon was mentally reminded of herself in the ninth grade, smoking a cigarette in the girl's room during lunch. First and only time she'd tried smoking. She'd felt dizzy, puked in the toilet.

Charlotte was looking at them with bleary eyes. Lisbon wasn't sure if she'd been crying or not, but she'd obviously wiped her face. There was water soaked into the neck of her t-shirt, but pastry crumbs around her lower lip. So... she'd eaten since washing her face?

"I need to get more clothes. My shirt is starting to stink," Charlotte told Jane, a totally earnest proclamation. Jane nodded.

"Do you want to see the CBI attic now?" Jane asked. Charlotte darted a look at Lisbon and Lisbon smiled at her, the same, awkward smile she found herself smiling whenever the girl looked at her. Charlotte's eyes were intense, like laser pointers, like gimlets, like something that could burn you if they rested on you for too long. Charlotte smiled back at Lisbon, and Lisbon was eerily reminded of a robot mimicking body language. The girl turned her attention back to Jane.

"You live up there, right?" Charlotte asked, not for the first time.

"I do. But... we still might have to go back to a motel. There is only one bed."

"Can't we get a camping cot?"

"We could. If you want to do that, we'll do that."

"What is more secure? A motel, or the CBI attic?" Charlotte asked.

"When it comes to Red John, you mean?" Jane asked, even though it was obvious that Red John was the only real security threat on the horizon. Charlotte nodded.

"Yeah."

"I'm not really sure. You'd know better than I would. What do you think is the best idea?" Jane asked, meeting Charlotte's green eyes.

"It is hard to say. Red John is hard to predict. I don't know what he will do in this situation."

Jane could only nod at that.

"No matter where we go, he might kill us, you know. Maybe he will today. Maybe tomorrow. Do you think so?"

"Do I think Red John will kill us today?" Jane said carefully, voice more neutral than he felt.

Charlotte nodded. "Yes."

"No, I don't think he will kill us today. Do you think he's going to kill us? Or try?"

Charlotte shrugged. "Who knows? I am not exactly on script anymore, am I? If I ever was."

Jane looked over at Lisbon. She seemed uneasy, had seemed uneasy and unsure of herself since Charlotte had first appeared, but more-so now. The teen's words were chilling, not only because of the content but because of the relative ease with which she uttered them. Scared and cavalier at the same time. His daughter had spent so long being terrified of simply existing that her own paranoia was an offhand mockery of terror. Terror and not-terror in one neat little package. Dizzying horror and emotional detachment which made it possible to continue to function.

"What if we set foot in the CBI attic and it is primed to explode, Patrick?" Charlotte said then and dropped her voice. The bullpen was more or less empty, but it was still sensitive information they were discussing.

"I don't think that will happen," Jane said, voice equally low.

"Why not?"

"Because," Jane said, darting a reassuring smile over to Lisbon, "where's the fun in that?"

* * *

They were in the attic of the CBI, outside Jane's digs. Jane motioned the sliding steel door that marked the entrance of his living space. Pulled a key from his pocket (he'd had the good sense to pocket it before giving his suit to Rigsby to be cleaned) and popped open the padlock. Pulled the door open. Charlotte winced as the door was slid open, as if expecting a physical blow. She waited a beat. Jane motioned she should enter with a nod of his head.

"Home sweet home," Jane said, and entered first. Then Lisbon. Finally Charlotte stepped inside. She gazed around in the gloom. Jane promptly slid the door shut again and locked it from the inside.

"You live here?" The teen asked uncertainly, wandering into the large square space. Dark red brick walls, interrupted by a duo of ochre windows to her left- each of these was segmented into squares, a 3 by 3 grid.

Stairs behind the orange windows and the rest of the wall was covered in old words, white, the fading remnants of another time and place, a nautical supply company's white wordage left on the brick, as currently topical as the ancient hieroglyphs of Egypt.

Front and center, directly parallel to the sliding steel door, was a desk made of an ancient wooden crate. A lamp on it, chrome it looked like, bendable neck, half-sphere shade, older wiring, probably from the 60s. Went well the unintentional rustic look of the place. An decrepit water heater clotted with rust to the left of the wood-plank makeshift desk. A teapot, stainless steel, with an elongated, curved spout.

A hot plate on the floor, unused.

A wooden box crate with another lamp, equally vintage. A huge bank of windows, or rather, one large window segmented into squares, clear, a 3 by 10 grid, north facing.

A semi-dividing wall of... what looked like cedar, a bed mattress with white sheets, a gray pullover fleece blanket and a blue throw with tasseled ends resting atop pine sawhorses that looked liked they'd been knocked together when Roosevelt was first sworn in.

Above them, two fluorescent lights in the brick ceiling, covered in cages. Charlotte walked over to the bed, took in the neatly made sleeping area. Blankets like those given to inmates, really. A small, flat white pillow. Sad.

A lonely yellow lamp, equally as "retro" as the one on the desk, nestled in the cedar plank of the dividing wall. A few books resting on the plank wall's "shelves".

And then, of course, there was the rolling pin board. Gray material. like the kind used in office cubicle dividers. Covered in maps, photographs, handwriting samples, push pins.

"This is a little John Nash, isn't it Patrick?" Charlotte said softly, pointing to the makeshift pin board. Her eyes scanned the documents, the photos, the info Patrick had seen fit to pin up. Obviously his way of trying to find Red John, piece together his location, his identity, from these clues.

Jane smiled, didn't answer.

Charlotte nodded in the direction of the north-facing window.

"That isn't secure. Someone could shoot you while you sleep. A sharpshooter, maybe. You should have put up blinds, at the very least."

Jane didn't say anything to this either.

"Really, Patrick. You have to take better care of yourself. This world is full of danger," Charlotte said, shooting her father a pointed look. She walked over to Jane's bed, hopped onto it.

"Not exactly a posturepedic, is it?"

Jane shook his head, smiled wider. "No, I guess not."

"You no longer have a penchant for Texas hold 'em?" Charlotte asked with faux innocence and pulled one of the books out of the little shelf space created by the planks.

"I've had other things on my mind," Jane allowed tolerantly.

"Fair enough," Charlotte murmured, and lay down on Jane's bed. First the couch downstairs, now the bed- as if, by adopting her father's position on these objects, she might gain entrance into his mind, his thought processes. She paid no mind to her father, now, watching her carefully, to his partner watching her awkwardly. Let them watch if they wanted. Charlotte kept her eyes open and on the ceiling. Then, in the same position, searched the room visually, no part of her moving except her eyes. Jane couldn't take his eyes off her, his child still so undeniably little-girl-Charlie and, at the same time, so worn out and tired, like her soul itself was screaming for peace, her green eyes seeking out threats anywhere and everywhere, if not outright danger. He studied her as she studied his domicile. This entire situation still felt utterly surreal to him, like a waking dream, only marginally more "real" than the hallucination-Charlotte, the pert and confident eidolon he'd dreamt up after that belladonna episode. This Charlotte was really nothing like hallucination-Charlotte, though. She was smaller, shorter, more wiry and both younger and much, much older in mannerisms and body language, not so much teenage girl as stunted little hobbit borne of horror. She still had the book she had pulled off Jane's bedside "shelf" in her hands and now she sat up and looked at it.

"The Lucifer Effect... understanding how _good people turn evil_," Charlotte read aloud. Jane said nothing to that. She wasn't mocking him, but the tone of her voice let him know, let Lisbon know, that she found the idea of good people turning evil utterly ridiculous. Charlotte narrowed her eyes, read some small print on the cover: "Creator of the landmark Stanford Prison experiment. _Cute_."

"I try to keep up," Jane said benignly.

"A little light bedtime reading?" Charlotte murmured, and flipped the book open. "Do you think you are a good person who has turned evil, Patrick? Because... I can't imagine you could ever view Red John as being good, at any point in time. Do you?"

"The book interested me. It's not about Red John," Jane said, but of course they both knew that was not really true.

"So...?" Jane said finally, not sure he enjoyed being scrutinized this carefully. "What do you think?"

"Of your bat cave?" Charlotte shot back, not unkindly, eyes still on the words of the book. Lisbon watched the two interact. Wondered just how hard this was for Jane. Wondered how hard this was for Charlotte- was this easier for her than it was for Jane, or just as painful but in an entirely different way? Had Jane's child always had this cocky, cavalier banter with her father, or was it new, or if not new, more pronounced? Was some part of her angry that Jane had never realized she was still alive? Lisbon tried to put herself in the girl's shoes, found she couldn't do it easily. This case was just too extreme, and there were too many variables to be able to intuitively figure out much.

But Lisbon felt, in her gut, that if she were in Charlotte's shoes- whether it was fair to Jane or not- she'd feel angry. Betrayed. He had never seen her corpse because she had never actually been dead, and realizing as an adolescent that Red John was a master manipulator was still no guarantee that the girl felt Jane had really sought to understand her death, sought to understand her fate. It would be hard to be six years old, perfectly alive and terrified, living with a monster and able to sympathize with a father who, as far as you knew, didn't really care about you. Even though that was not what had happened, emotionally it must have felt like what had happened. And that anger wouldn't just skip away with time.

If anything, Lisbon felt, that bitterness must have mutated and deepened over the years like spores attaching to a body and burrowing into it. Alien rage, anger created out of almost preternatural viciousness, almost non-human abuse. And if she- Teresa Lisbon- had figured this out, was intuiting this after a few short hours... then what was Jane picking up on right about now? Was that why the lines around his eyes, what Lisbon had almost subconsciously come to think of as his _pain lines_- was that why they seemed just slightly deeper?

Lisbon had long felt that murdering Jane's wife and child had been the zenith of the torture Red John had inflicted, but how much worse was this sick plan of his: to steal Jane's little child and raise her with blood-shed and madness while her own father failed to put the pieces together, failed to realize that she had been out there all the time, terrified and alone, crying in the dark of Red John's calculated Hell? How much worse was Jane's already-monumental guilt since coming to know that Charlotte was still alive? Did Charlotte even realize how tormented her father was, or did she assume he didn't really care? How much of her upbringing had she internalized, how much was now her emotional, undeniable truth?

"My bat cave, sure, if you want to call it that. Do you like it?" Jane said, in response to her words.

"It's a little Phantom of the Opera-esque, isn't it? Quasimodo on steroids?"

"I think you're mixing up stories, there," Jane said, smiling gently.

Charlotte shrugged, turned her gimlet eyes on the mentalist who had given her half her life. "It's cool, I guess. A little dark, though."

"That's what the lamps are for," Jane said, and nodded toward the lamp on his desk, the lamp nestled in the corner of the planks on his "wall".

"Even still..." Charlotte said, and leaned over, turned the yellow lamp near his bed on. "This place looks like a breeding ground for ghosts."

Jane nodded. Shot Lisbon a look that said _Be cool, Lisbon_. She looked out of place, unsure of what she was doing here, but rooted to the spot.

"I don't believe in ghosts," Jane said, then, hoping to lighten the conversation. He walked over to his desk, pulled out his chair. Looked at Lisbon and smiled, inclined his head. What he was saying, without saying a word was: _Here, Lisbon, have a seat. _Lisbon nodded, crossed the room. Sat down. Jane walked over to the old water heater, pulled a wooden crate out, came over to the bed and put the crate down on the floor. Sat down on it. An overgrown kid in a ramshackle club house sitting on somebody's old odds and ends, that was Jane.

"Of course you don't," Charlotte murmured, and darted a look over at Lisbon. For a second Lisbon was sure she saw pain in those dark green eyes, deep emotional upset, almost as if Jane had just personally insulted her. Mocked her or been cruel. But why? _Why? _

"Lisbon? You believe in ghosts? Or... at least that they're a possibility in this great, unknown universe of ours?" Charlotte asked, turning those laser eyes to sweep over Lisbon now. Lisbon smiled awkwardly, had the sudden, insane delusion that Charlotte could actually read her mind, read it in a paranormal, alien way. She felt as out of place as she had felt the first time Jane had really spun her head around and defied social niceties on a case, except this situation was much more intense. Charlotte's very existence made it more intense.

"I... I'm not sure," Lisbon said honestly. "I don't know enough about them to make a decision either way."

Charlotte grinned at that and Lisbon caught a flash of silver amalgam fillings in her back molars, just a flash, catching the ambient light and shooting it back to her in a wink of gun-metal-gray and incandescent yellow. She shot her father a pointed look.

"You could learn a lot from her, Patrick. Never say never. When you know everything, that's when you can believe in absolutes. And since you'll never know everything..." Charlotte tapped on her scalp with her right pointer finger, grinned madly. Lisbon had a sudden image of the girl as a human reincarnation of the cat from Alice in Wonderland. Wondered what Jane was thinking right now. He was unusually quiet, unusually subdued. Very studious, all attention on his adolescent child.

"So... you believe in ghosts, I guess?" Jane said lightly, finally. Charlotte shrugged and hopped off Jane's bed. Laid the book down gently on top of the covers with undue care.

"_Non omnis moriar_- not all of me will die. I am fairly certain of that. But I don't believe in anything. Not with any absolute confidence."

"That seems like a very uncertain way to live," Jane said, his pupils huge in the gloom. The pain lines around his eyes etched themselves a micron deeper.

"It is, I suppose," Charlotte confirmed, walked over to Lisbon seated at her father's desk. Reached past Lisbon to the atomic-era chrome lamp on his desk. She turned that lamp, on, too. She walked over to the wooden crate used as a make-shift table beside it and turned the lamp on top of it on, too.

"Still dark in here, Patrick."

"I suppose it is."

:If you're going to dig around inside the minds and souls of monsters, then maybe you should have a bit more light. Monsters like darkness."

"They do?" Jane said. He knew he sounded patronizing, but he didn't really know what else to say to that comment. Lisbon, for her part, was silent.

Charlotte blinked hard then. Some expression had moved over her face like a shadow falling over someone on a sunny day at high noon, a time when shadows shouldn't really exist. It was now gone, but Lisbon was pretty sure she had seen it and the sight of it had made her blood feel cold. Or was it all this ghost talk giving her the jitters? The sum enormity of the last day and a half?

"You like to drink tea, Lisbon?" Charlotte said then, turning her attention. Lisbon nodded.

"Tea? Yes. Tea's good."

"Everyone likes tea. Even Red John likes tea," Charlotte informed them. "But I don't see any sink around here for water."

"Would you like some tea?" Jane asked dutifully, "I have some bottled water up here. I could make us tea easily."

"Red John likes tea. And four year old girls like tea. The Asians like it, and the Brits, too. If there are aliens visiting this planet, they probably also drink it."

"Do you want some tea?" Jane asked again, voice slightly more neutral. "Charlotte?"

"Tea would be lovely. Thanks, Patrick."

Jane just nodded. Disappeared behind the wall made of cedar planks and came back carrying a 12 pack of bottled water. Charlotte hopped back up on his bed. Picked back up the book she had been looking at earlier and smiled down at the cover, amused.

Jane poured three bottles of water into his electric kettle and turned it on, disappeared behind the wall again and came back with two coffee mugs in his right hand and a box of sugar cubes in his left. He put the sugar cubes and mugs down on his desk next to his own blue teacup and pulled a box of chinese gunpowder teabags off the crate-table. Silently, he ripped the paper off each teabag before carefully putting the teabags in the cups. The teabag wrappers he dropped into a little wire wastepaper basket.

"Do you have to pay rent to live up here?" Charlotte asked from atop Jane's bed, where she was sitting cross-legged.

"No," Jane said, smiling a little at that. The idea of that.

"What's behind that wall you keep disappearing behind?"

"Tea. Some food. Water. Random stuff from time immemorial that the CBI doesn't want to part with."

"Do you have to go back to that floor we were on to use a bathroom?"

"No. There is an old bathroom up here. I can show you where."

"Behind the yellow windows, there?" Charlotte asked, and motioned her head. Jane nodded.

"Yes."

"Where do you shower?"

Jane looked at Lisbon. Grinned.

"There are locker rooms downstairs for agents. After five they are more or less empty."

"You're still wearing those over-sized clothes from yesterday," Charlotte informed her father, apparently already bored with the current line of inquiry.

"I have more clothing, too," Jane said. "Should I get changed?"

"If you want to. You're wearing Rigsby's clothes. He'll want them back eventually."

Jane nodded, looked over at Lisbon with a small, knowing smile on his lips. "How'd you know they are Rigsby's clothes?"

"You think you're the only one who can pay attention to things?" Charlotte asked and grinned at her father, but there was no smile in her eyes.

Jane nodded. Point taken. Walked back behind the partition.

"What are you getting now?" Charlotte questioned from atop Jane's bed.

"I'm getting changed, like you suggested."

* * *

They'd had their tea. Charlotte had watched Jane and Lisbon carefully. Jane took his tea black, no sugar. Lisbon took 1 cube of sugar. Charlotte waited for them both to take a sip first, then doled six sugar cubes into her cup, so that her tea was almost more syrup than anything else. She ate it with the spoon.

"Are you hungry?" Jane asked as his daughter spooned the mixture into her mouth. He was finally dressed in one of his own three-piece suits and aside from the tired look on his face and his rather disheveled hair, looked more or less "normal". Charlotte shrugged, and kept eating. Eating, not drinking. Not with 6 sugar cubes in the cup and water that drizzled.

"We can go out and get something to eat?" Jane offered again.

"I have food in my backpack," Charlotte said, and nudged her head towards the bag at her side.

"Okay. But, if you want something besides pop tarts? Something that doesn't come in a box?"

"I can buy my own food, Patrick," Charlotte said guardedly. Lisbon caught Jane's eyes. Jane just smiled pleasantly back at her, then pleasantly back at Charlotte. Lisbon felt tense, but Jane looked smooth as silk, as if this conversation was common place, normal.

"We'll have to go out again, anyway-"

"Why?" Charlotte said, and spooned more sugar water into her mouth.

"Well, as you can see, there is only one bed. If you want to stay here, we'll have to get at least another bed. And one more for Lisbon?"

"We can't just stay up here forever," Charlotte said. Ate more of her tea.

"I thought you wanted to stay here?" Jane responded, smile fading a bit.

Charlotte, in typical teenage fashion, sighed. A long drawn out sigh.

"I didn't know it would be so dark up here."

"Does that bother you?"

"No."

"Because if it does, that's okay," Jane said, and his voice softened with gentle concern.

Charlotte glared at him. Took another spoonful of sugar-water.

"Why would the dark bother me?" She said around the spoon in her mouth.

Jane held up his hands in a don't-shoot gesture. "Obviously it doesn't. My bad. But if it does-"

"I said it doesn't. But there is not enough room for all of us. We need more space."

"Agreed," Jane said diplomatically.

"Lisbon isn't going to want to stay up here," Charlotte elaborated. Lisbon gave the teen an uncomfortable smile.

Charlotte was watching her carefully. Now Jane turned to look at her, too. Lisbon's smile faltered. She knew her words were important, but what words were the right ones?

"It would be pretty cramped in here," Lisbon allowed slowly, testing the waters. Charlotte was nodding in agreement.

"See? It's too cramped," Charlotte told Jane. She held the spoon, drank the rest of the tea mixture and looked towards the teapot longingly.

"More?" Jane said, picking up the teapot. The girl nodded and Jane reached over, refilled her cup with hot water. Jane got up, grabbed the box of teabags from his desk and passed them to his daughter. She took one, ripped the paper off with her teeth and sunk the teabag into the cup.

Lisbon's cell went off then. She pulled it out, lowered her voice. Got up and walked towards the door, voice low. Stepped outside and into the hallway outside of Jane's "attic".

"Who is she talking to?" Charlotte asked her father in what was almost a whisper, eyes trailing back to the door Lisbon had just departed through.

"Probably her boss. You'll be okay her for a few minutes?"

Charlotte gave Jane a pointedly annoyed look.

"Right," Jane said in response to that look. "Well, I am going to go check on her. Be right back."

Charlotte just nodded. Jane crossed over his threshold, closed the door behind him. Lisbon held up a finger to him when she saw him, a signal to keep quiet.

"No, sir. I was with Jane until about an hour ago," Lisbon said into the phone. Jane watched her sharply.

"The girl? I don't know, sir. Yes, Jane thinks so. Well... I believe he'd recognize his own child, for one thing." Lisbon's tone of voice was bordering on incredulous now. Lisbon sighed. "Yes, when I see him, I'll tell him. Yes. No, of course not. No, he hasn't left the state. Yes... I'm quite sure." Lisbon looked at Jane with dark eyes. Finally said goodbye to whoever was on the phone and clipped the cell closed. Swore under breath. Jane looked at her expectantly.

"Our friends at the FBI. They want to ask Charlotte about Red John, about the murders yesterday-" Lisbon began, exasperated. Jane held up a hand now, to quiet her. His eyes darted back to the sliding door he'd just come through. He reached forward, tugged the door open in one fluid motion. Charlotte was standing a few feet away from the door, backpack on her shoulders, looking for all the world like she might run. She'd obviously been eavesdropping, heard Lisbon's words.

"I'm not talking to the FBI," she told Jane directly, before darting a glance over to Lisbon. "No way. And I am getting out of this pig building right now-"

Ordinarily, Jane would have said something about the "pig" comment, Lisbon knew that. But Charlotte was too wound up, and her fear was contagious. She looked to Jane with haunted eyes.

"The FBI get their hands on me? And I'm history."

"They won't get their hands on you," Jane said with unerring conviction. He was obviously attempting to be soothing, but Charlotte was having none of it.

"Never say never," she said darkly. "Is there a another way out of this building? Besides the way we came up here?"

Jane nodded.

"There's a fire escape, if you don't mind climbing down and dropping about four feet to cement pavement-"

"Don't mind at all-"

"Jane!" Lisbon said, trying to be rational. "Running away right now? It's not a good idea. It won't help you, and it won't help Charlotte-"

"How do we get down? _Now_?" Charlotte prompted, and the anxiety in her voice ratcheted up another notch. Jane reached out and closed the door to his attic, went to his desk and came back with a padlock. He locked the attic from the inside (that would surely piss off anyone in an official capacity who wanted to enter, but too bad) and pulled a key from the back of the wooden crate, taped in place with silver duct tape. Pocketed it and showed Charlotte around the wall and through a loop which led to a fire door. The EXIT light above the door had long ago died, leaving the area in virtual blackness. He unlocked the door, and pressed it open with a creaky screech. Bright afternoon sunlight caught his eyes and he half-winced, half-squinted. He walked out, and Charlotte followed. Then Lisbon. They were on a small metal platform, grated, with a staircase looping down for about five storeys. Charlotte held tight to the metal railing, leaned over and squinted. Her face in the direct, white sunlight of mid-day was incredibly young.

"Not afraid of heights?" Jane prompted. Charlotte shrugged. If she was afraid, she certainly wouldn't voice that fear now. Lisbon glanced toward the cement a good 50, 60 feet below, stern as ever.

"Jane?! This is a really bad idea!"

"You can come with us, Lisbon, or you can stay here and keep out of trouble. The choice is yours. But... I hope you'll come with us," Jane said firmly, no ounce of playfulness in his voice. Lisbon stared at him, obviously dismayed, before nodding. Some sad resolution in his voice had caught her attention, made her heart skip a beat. Charlotte was already clambering down the staircase at quite a clip, intent on her escape. She turned and saw their face-off and narrowed her eyes with annoyance.

"Hurry up!" She hissed at her father. He turned back to her and started down. Lisbon sighed, and followed. Jane had known she would.

* * *

They were in a back alley which smelled of old takeaway and dust and Jane nodded the direction to go and began to jog. Charlotte raced after him, cheeks already pinkening up. When they reached the street Jane ushered them across, jay-walking, and into a little cafe. Charlotte eyed the place distrustfully, but came inside after a long handful of seconds.

"We'll order a taxi from here, okay? To take us to a car dealership?"

"Jane-" Lisbon tried again, but Jane just shook his head.

"She is not talking to the FBI until we have some sort of deal in place which ensures her safety-"

"You want protection from the FBI? From who, Jane? Who do you think can protect you from the FBI?"

"Not sure. They'll come to us, maybe. Given the severity of this case and the fact that we know Red John has inside people, well... I am sure they'll understand."

Charlotte was eyeing her father appraisingly, as if trying to get a read on him.

"Ask to use their phone here. Don't use your cell phone, Patrick. They'll trace it- and Lisbon, if you come with us? Throw out your phone here-" Charlotte said, then, fast and tight and voice moderately quiet.

Jane was nodding. He had already, obviously, come to a similar decision about the phones.

"Jane, this is just going to escalate. Do you even have an end game here?"

"We'll think of one on the road," Jane said tightly, and his tone of voice told her he would not debate it anymore. His first priority was keeping his child with him and keeping her safe. Everything else came second to that.

"And Cho? Rigsby? What will they-"

"They'll figure it out," Jane said softly. Something dark and sharp in his eyes lightened just a little. He knew what he was asking of her. Just pack up and leave. Defy the rules of the job, leave her home. Just... go. Because his daughter had come back, and because Red John was still out there. And because he'd be damned if he'd ever be in a position where he might lose his child again. But, he didn't want to lose her, either. She knew that.

Charlotte was sitting at a table, had slumped into it within seconds of entering the cafe, the bell above the door tinkling lightly. She now laid her head against the top of the table tiredly, on the faux-wood formica. Jane slid across from her, took in the pale face and the flushed cheeks, the beads of sweat, the sunken eyes. Something akin to worry nipped around in his stomach and he pushed it away. Already a waitress had appeared, a latino woman in a blue dress and white apron and hair net, carrying a pad and pen. She smiled a huge smile when she saw Jane.

"What can I get you, Patrick?" She said in fluent English, and Jane grinned back at her. He ordered tea and a chicken salad sandwich, a side of home fries with gravy. Lisbon stared at him, trying to work out his angle. Charlotte looked somewhere between annoyed and disbelieving. She'd clearly been planning on escaping instantly, and this delay had her head up and off the table, eyes burning bright with what was almost anger.

"We'll eat something and then order a cab, Charlie," Jane said softly, but there was a sternness in his voice. Charlotte opened her mouth to say something but Jane spoke again before she could protest.

"I want you to eat something. Real food. Not whatever you're carrying around-" Jane motioned her bag, "-in there."

"I'm not hungry, _Patrick_," Charlotte said, and at that moment she could have passed for one of a million teenage girls who was trying not to roll their eyes at an overprotective parent.

"You might not be hungry, now, but you'll be hungry later. You need calories to function," Jane remarked casually. The waitress was watching the exchange, politely waiting for Charlotte to order.

"Lisbon can order first if you want to look at the menu?" Jane said, and pushed Lisbon a laminated menu, handed Charlotte a menu. Charlotte mumbled what was almost certainly "Jesus Christ" under her breath and glared at Jane again, but took the menu. Lisbon took it, stifled a sigh, and opened it. Decided on the California burger (it was basically a mushroom cheddar burger with guacamole and chipotle mayo) and side salad, a Pepsi. It looked good, but more than that, it looked safe, food that wouldn't alienate Jane's kid.

Finally, realizing that Jane would not budge on the issue, Charlotte ordered a grilled cheese on white bread with fries and gravy. A strawberry milkshake. She shot her father a pointed look.

"Thank you," Jane said softly, as if she had just done a whole lot more than order food on his dime. The look of resentment in her eyes eased just a little and she managed what was almost- but not quite- a congenial nod.

"We'll eat fast, though," Charlotte said. Almost an order, really. Jane smiled back at her. Didn't quite nod.

* * *

**Thursday, November 1st, 2013 3:38 P.M. P.S.T.**

Jane ate slowly. Lisbon picked at her burger, took a few bites of salad. She knew Jane had a point about eating: if they were going to be on the run in a few minutes, it might be wise to fuel up now. Jane was trying to make casual chit chat and Charlotte was having none of it. Her sandwich had come with a little toothpick on the top and a huge dill pickle, and within 5 seconds she'd wolfed down the pickle. Lisbon tried not to stare. Next, Charlotte pulled the grilled cheese apart, so that the cheese stretched between the slices of the toasted bread, and began to line up french fries (covered in gravy) on one of the she had two layers of french fries, she put the sandwich back together. Picked up the bottle of Heinz ketchup and smacked a huge dollop of ketchup onto her plate. She began to eat the sandwich (now stuffed with french fries) quickly, dabbing it in the ketchup between bites. She had an immediate pattern: huge bite of her "grilled cheese", five quick chews, eyes on her father, then a gulp of milkshake to wash it down. Every so often her gaze shifted to Lisbon, but she obviously didn't consider Lisbon much of a threat.

Jane continued to chew slowly.

"Can you even taste any of that?" Jane asked her gently. Charlotte shrugged. Finally nodded. Said something that almost sounded like "tastes good", but it was hard to tell for sure. Lisbon continued to eat at a normal pace, taking her cues from Jane.

Less than five minutes after her meal had arrived, Charlotte was finished. Jane was still working on one half of his sandwich. He reached over and pulled Charlotte's ketchup-streaked plate towards his, pushed the fries with gravy off his plate and onto Charlotte's with his fork and pushed the plate towards her.

"Eat," Jane said simply, and nodded at the plate.

"I'm not hungry, Patrick," Charlotte said.

"So? I'm a slow eater. This will go faster if you help me."

At that, Charlotte just snorted. Picked up her own fork, and begun to eat french fries. Lisbon tried not to watch her. Focused on chewing her burger. A few bites of salad. A sip of soft drink. Charlotte looked at Lisbon's soda, narrowed her eyes.

"You got Pepsi?"

Lisbon nodded. "Yeah."

"Pepsi is gross. Do you know they- Pepsi-Cola- used aborted fetal cells to create flavour enhancers? There aren't actually dead baby cells in your drink, but they used them in a lab, for research, to create flavour enhancers which are, actually, in your drink? I boycott Pepsi."

Jane, despite himself, was grinning.

"Where'd you hear that?"

"Everyone knows about it," Charlotte informed her father.

"Everyone? I didn't know about it. Lisbon?"

Lisbon had already decided that Pepsi was off-limits. Shook her head.

"You can look it up on the internet if you don't believe me," Charlotte said, and there was no light in her eyes, no banter in her voice.

"I never said I didn't believe you," Jane said calmly, and the smile on his face melted a bit.

"No, you didn't say it, but you don't. It's why you were smiling like that. You think I am a full-of-shit teenager trying to get a rise out of your friend."

Jane, calmly, took another bite of his chicken salad sandwich.

"Is that what I think?" His tone wasn't unkind, but it wasn't playful anymore.

"Yes," Charlotte shot back, not intimidated in the slightest.

"Were you?"

"Was I what?"

"Trying to get a rise out of Lisbon?" Jane said calmly, and took another bite of his sandwich.

"No, not anymore than you were trying to get a rise out of me by ordering food right now," Charlotte said, and her eyes, if possible, seemed to turn even hotter. Jane shot Lisbon a placating look and shrugged.

"You needed to eat. And, before you deny it... even if you didn't, I needed to eat. I can't think when I am hungry."

Charlotte didn't say anything to that. Her eyes softened a bit and she stared at her plate. Put away another forkful of fries. Head down, eyes burning angrily at the french fries covered in both gravy and ketchup. Her movements were more mechanical now, a flush of red on her cheeks like Jane had just publicly shamed her, which, of course, he really hadn't. Lisbon felt sorry for the kid. Wondered if all interactions were power games in Charlotte's mind. Probably.

Fucking Red John.

Lisbon ate quickly after that and Jane got a doggy bag for the other half of his sandwich. Purchased three saran-wrapped slices of apple pie to go in a brown paper take-out bag and asked to use the phone. The young latino woman quickly nodded and brought out an old salmon-pink rotary phone, something so outdated it almost looked like a movie prop. Jane dialed the cab from memory, gave the name "Stewart" when the cabbie on the other end asked for a name and hung up. He leaned over, whispered a few sentences to the young woman who had served them, and smiled at her when she smiled back, nodded.

No doubt she would never remember they had been there. Is that why Jane liked this place? Was she easy to hypnotize?

They sat at their table, waiting, watching the street and the life outside the restaurant's windows. When the cab pulled up Charlotte was the first on her feet and the first to reach the door. She said nothing to the cabbie, obviously, just pulled the back door open and crawled in.

* * *

They'd been dropped off at a Toyota car dealership just outside Sacramento. Jane strolled in, made some small talk. Lisbon watched Jane, then glanced over at a rather bored looking Charlotte. The salesman seemed to know Jane, and Lisbon's hunch was confirmed when Jane called the man by his first name, "Ricky".

Ricky nodded at something Jane said. He nodded in Lisbon's direction, looked at Charlotte and smiled at her, the type of smile people ordinarily reserved for much younger children. Charlotte ignored him and wandered over to the little coffee maker in the corner of the showroom set up for lookey-loos. Poured herself a styrofoam cup of coffee and dumped an unnatural amount (at least 5 seconds worth) of coffee mate into the dark liquid, a handful of sugar cubes. She stirred the entire mess with a brown plastic stir-stick and sat on one of the bucket seats, drinking her coffee (with clumps of coffee mate floating on the top) through the stir-stick and staring at her converse all-star shoes with drooping eyelids. Lisbon watched her, fascinated by this young, odd girl who was Patrick Jane's child. Charlotte, feeling herself being watched, darted a look up at Lisbon.

"This coffee tastes like shit," she informed Lisbon with annoyance, no ounce of sarcasm in her voice. Lisbon nodded, tried not to laugh.

"You can have a coffee, too, if you like," Charlotte said generously, and nodded to the machine. Lisbon smiled in earnest at that, shook her head.

"It's free, you know," Charlotte reminded Lisbon.

"No, it's okay. I'm not thirsty."

Jane came over to his daughter a few minutes later, shook the keys like they were a baby rattle and Charlotte looked up. Ricky-the-salesman was nowhere to be seen.

"Ready to go?" He said to her, then looked over to Lisbon, who had taken a seat next to Charlotte. Lisbon nodded. Charlotte got up, quickly drank the rest of her coffee and held onto the empty, sugar-coated styrofoam cup. In the parking lot, with the stir-stick speared through the side, she tossed the cup onto the ground and purposefully stepped on it. The flattened styrofoam she kicked under a gleaming red 2013 Toyota corolla.

Jane had already unlocked the back door of the car that was obviously "his" (Lisbon didn't know cars but she thought it might be a Camry) and ushered Charlotte inside. He then unlocked the driver's side and got in. Reached over and unlocked the passenger side for Lisbon.

And then they were off. Jane pulled the car back onto the macadam of the highway, began to accelerate. Lisbon glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was quarter to five. After a few minutes Jane caught Lisbon watching him curiously.

"He owed me some money," Jane said by way of explanation. Lisbon nodded. She had suspected something like that.

From the backseat Charlotte mumbled: "Too bad he didn't work at a Porsche dealership." Then she was silent again. Ten minutes on the road, and Lisbon risked a glance over her shoulder. Charlotte was slumped with her face against the glass of the window, apparently fast asleep.

"You're going to want to get rid of your phone, now, Lisbon," Jane told her. He rolled down his own window, pulled his phone out of his pocket and tossed it out into the late afternoon heat. Lisbon sighed. Removed her phone. Rigsby had left a text message, begging to know where she and Jane were. She could almost see the worried expression on his face as he had thumbed in the message.

"They can be used to track people," Jane insisted. Lisbon nodded. Wondered what she was becoming, right now, if she threw her phone away. Legally, was she becoming a fugitive? Not really, since Charlotte was merely wanted for questioning and involvement with Red John and nothing else. But legally, how would this be spun? Jane, as if reading her thoughts, caught her eye. Sighed.

"If you want me to drop you off somewhere, Lisbon, I will understand. This has to be your decision." The understanding in his voice cemented it. Lisbon rolled down her own window and threw the phone out onto the long expanse of road. They were now on Interstate 5, heading south. The early November air was hot and dry, charged with electricity. Overhead there were thunderclouds.

From the backseat, groggily: "We on Interstate 5?"

"Yes," Jane told his daughter, and glanced in the rearview mirror. Charlotte yawned and forced herself to sit up.

"Good. You can stay on it south, all the way to Tijuana."

Lisbon shot Jane a look. Tijuana? Surely, they wouldn't be crossing the border.

"Right now we're just going to keep moving," Jane told Lisbon lightly, purposefully pitching his voice low. "See what develops."

* * *

-Chapter End- Please Review


	9. Chapter 9

**Title:** Charlotte's Web (Chapter Nine) by Lexikal  
**Rating:** M for graphic violence and language  
**Fandom:** The Mentalist  
**Summary:** Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.

**Author's Note: **Keep the reviews coming guys!

* * *

"The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers." - Erich Fromm

"Uncertainty is the refuge of hope."- Henri Frederic Amiel

"We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict." - Jim Morrison

"Sometimes paranoia's just having all the facts." - William S. Burroughs

* * *

"She can stay and watch, or she can wait outside," the man said. Except, of course, he wasn't really a man. He was a demon, or a monster, but he had a human face. Almost looked like Daddy. Not quite. And in the right light, no... nothing like Daddy.

"Please," Mommy said, and her voice broke up. She wasn't crying but her fear was breaking her voice up, like the words weren't strong enough to march out of her mouth for very long on their own. You needed to be unafraid to speak normally, otherwise your fear hailed down on your words like acid rain and your words walked all bent over. "_Please_. Don't hurt my baby."

_Baby_. Charlotte, standing in the doorway, wrinkled her nose. Baby?! Babies were 1 year and under. But Mommy was crying now, streams of clear tears down her cheeks. She, Charlotte, had come across this scene, woken up from a nightmare (her teeth had been falling out, and some man with needle-nose pliers was taking them out, one by one, and putting them in an old glass milk jug full of cobwebs) and so she'd come to speak to Mommy, to get a cuddle. And here, in Mommy and Daddy's room, she'd found Mommy sitting on her bed and talking in careful words to this man that looked sort of like Daddy but obviously wasn't him, and obviously wasn't even a man. The man had turned and smiled at her when he saw her, but the smile wasn't altogether nice. His eyes looked mean, like an animal watching another animal die.

"_Mommy?_" Charlotte asked, and that one word told them both everything. That she was scared, and wanted to know who this stranger was, and wanted to know why her mother was crying.

"Charlotte, go back to your room, baby-" Mommy said, and she used that word again, _baby_. Mommy's forehead was wrinkled up with sadness and fear.

"She can stay and watch if she likes. It might be better. Might ease the transition?" The man asked, and his voice was almost friendly, as if he was discussing who gets to go next in Monopoly or if you can really buy that house on St. James Place. Except, it was the wrong tone of voice to be using with someone else so obviously upset.

"Please," Mommy said again, and then she started to cry for real. Her face crumpled up like a piece of paper and she began to cry even harder, making little newborn kitten noises from the back of her throat. Tears were coming out of her eyes much more, and a little bit of spittle from her mouth was dripping down like a clear bit of web from a spider. "If you let us go, I promise you, we won't call the police. Patrick will stop working on the case today, I promise..."

"Oh, Angela," the man said, and he sounded almost sad. "I wish it were that simple. I really do. But Patrick needs to learn that he can't degrade people. He really needs to learn it and a simple warning won't suffice, I'm afraid."

"But... but I... _I _didn't do anything to you! I, and Charlotte-" Mommy was trying hard to make the man agree with her, Charlotte could see that, but the man had already made up his mind. Charlotte wasn't sure what his decision would be, but considering how scared and sad Mommy was, the decision wasn't a good one, not a _nice_ one. Daddy said that sometimes when people didn't get along, you had to reach a compromise. A compromise was when two or more people agreed to do something a little different then they wanted to get part of what they wanted. Based on how Mommy was acting, this monster-man didn't want to compromise. Not at all.

"I know. You are completely innocent. So is Charlotte. It's not fair, is it? How life is, sometimes?"

"Please-" Mommy tried again and the man sighed, loudly, longly, like he was getting annoyed.

"I brought you some milk. It will be easier if you drink it. Think of Charlotte. What you want her to see? You struggling? Or you... simply ending." The man's voice got higher at the end.

"Charlotte," Mommy said, and she turned her sad, teary face toward the child. "Charlotte? Look at me. _Look at Mommy_."

The child did. She looked at her mother and at her mother's tear-streaked, terror-filled face and felt a warm wetness spread through her panties, down her leg. She had peed herself. Mommy's face, her terror, had done it. The child could even hear her pee dribbling out onto the floor. Dripdripdripdrip.

"I want you to... _run! Run Charlotte! RUN!" _Mommy said, and her words got harder, faster and more anguished. The man made an annoyed noise almost like a grunt and reached out and there was a cracking nose but Charlotte didn't see what happened because she had turned and was running down the hall, back to her room. She had thought about going down the stairs, but it was dark downstairs. In her bedroom were all her dolls, and Daddy said they kept monsters away. He said he had paid each of the dolls money (five dollars) to stay awake all night long and keep away the monsters-

She burst into her room and dove under the bed. In the dark of her room, she could see, for a second, all the eyes of her dolls watching, watching silently. They knew she was here, of course, and when the monster man came, they wouldn't let him in, they would do something, they would have to do something, because Daddy had said they would protect her if he couldn't be there or if Mommy couldn't be there and because the alternative was inconceivable.

Under her bed, she could hear calm, slow footsteps. The footsteps were slower than Mommy's, and heavier (_the monster-man, the monster-man was coming_). Now she could almost feel him in the dark of the hallway, and from under the bed she could see his feet, the black shine of his expensive shoes. The shoes took a step into the room.

"Charlotte? I know you're in here," the monster-man said. Charlotte, under her bed, felt a little more of her pee come out, hot and then warm, then cold, all over the floor and soaking through her underwear. She kept her mouth shut, screwed up her eyes. She would not look. _She would not look_. She would keep silent and pray to wake up, and maybe God would hear, and would wake her up.

"Charlotte? Are you under the bed?" The monster-man said and she felt more than saw the shift of light. She slit her eyes open and could see that the man had pulled up the blanket hanging over the edge of her bed and had bent down and he was looking at her with eager, shining eyes. Eyes like liquid mercury.

"_Hello_," he said, and his voice was perfectly pleasant. His eyes reminded the child of an eagle or a hawk, when it sees a mouse or a rat on the nature shows. Totally "zeroed" in, that's what Daddy called it (_look at that, Charlie, that eagle has zeroed in on that mouse!) _and right now, that was what this man's eyes were like, looking at her. Zeroed in on her.

"Why are you under the bed?" The man said, then, as if she had just decided to crawl under it for no reason. Charlotte tried to listen to the house past the man's words and past the fast beating of her heart and the thrumming noise of her blood in her ears and the whooshing of her lungs, because maybe Daddy would be coming home soon, or maybe he was home and just didn't know what was going on.

"Daddy!" Charlotte screamed then, suddenly, hoping to catch the monster-man off guard. It did catch him off guard, just a little, his eyes got a bit wider. She tried it again. "_DADDDDDDDDDY!" _A long, drawn-out scream of fear.

The man actually laughed then, a small little chuckle of a laugh.

"Oh, Charlotte. Your father can't help you. Your father could never help you." His words were so certain, so strong, not like Mommy's had been, not shaky at all.

"I WANT MY MOMMY!"

"Your Mommy, I'm afraid, is no longer with us," the man said, and his voice took on a tone of voice that was a little different. Like... he was almost sorry. Except, of course, Charlotte knew he wasn't _really_ sorry, he was just pretending to be sorry.

"_I WANT MY MOMMMMMY!" _The child screamed again, louder, as if by screaming it louder it might suddenly become true. God listened to prayers more, maybe, when they were screamed.

"I can show you your mother. Would that be easier for you?" The monster-man smiled again. "I think that will be easier for us both." And he held out his hand, under the bed. Charlotte scurried back, tried to crawl out from under the bed the other way, but the man was instantly there, fast as a shadow, had his hands under her arms and strongly-but-gently pulled her out. She tried to bite his hand and that got a laugh. She bit it hard, she knew, because she could taste salt (_blood, that is his blood_) and then he shook her, hard, like she was a rag doll. She let go of his mouth.

"_You will not bite me again_," the monster-man said, and his voice was much stronger now. If words could be made out of metal, than this man's words were metal, not just meaning and air. A drop of his blood fell on the ground, a blossom of red that looked black in the dim room, just a little speck of blood. Like, maybe, one of the angels in heaven was crying. Crying blood. Monster-man held her with his good arm, wiped the bite on the corner of his jacket.

"I'm taking you to your mother. Come on," He said, and there was no room in his words to disobey. Charlotte allowed herself to be walked back to her mother and father's room. Mommy was on the bed, The man let go of her when she was in the room and closed the door behind them. She heard the lock go on. The child went to her mother.

Mommy was lying on her back on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. Her eyes were shiny and she wasn't blinking. She wasn't breathing either, no up and down movement of her chest. The black parts of her eyes were very big. Was she...

The girl glanced back at the monster man, wide-eyed, uncertain.

"She's dead," the man confirmed simply, and put on a sad-face, much the same way some people might put on a Halloween mask. The face wasn't real, the expression had no life in it, it was all for show. But Charlotte knew the man was telling the truth. Mommy was dead. She wasn't moving, and she wasn't sleeping. And she would never wake up.

"You can touch her, if you like. So you can experience death?"

Charlotte felt her eyes get hot. She'd had a goldfish die before. It went belly-up and Daddy had hugged her and flushed it down the toilet and told her it was going to the "giant fish bowl in the sky" and the next day, there had been a new fish in the bowl. But this was Mommy, and she could not be so easily replaced.

Charlotte touched her mother's face with her tiny fingers. Said her name. Tears were falling down her own face now, and dripping onto her mother's face. Drip, drip, drip. A child's tears on her dead mother.

"Mommy?_ Wake up!_"

"The dead-"

"Mommy! Can you _hear me_?"

"-don't wake up, Charlotte. That's what being-"

"PLEASE MOMMY!"

"dead means."

"_MOMMY!_"

"When you're dead, you're gone. Your soul goes away, to heaven, if you like. And your body stops working. And you decay."

Charlotte looked up at the man, screwed up her face. He had said the word "decay". Daddy had used that word once. He had found some food at the back of the fridge that had been in there for a long, long time.A sandwich, that was what the food had originally been. The sandwich had gone green and got mold on top and he had said it had "decayed". He had been laughing and joking about Mommy not being very good at keeping the kitchen clean and Mommy had gotten annoyed and said "that was your sandwich, Patrick!" but she had started laughing, too. Decayed meant... Charlotte tried to process these words, process what was happening, but it was hard. Because Mommies didn't decay... did they? She didn't even have the words she needed to explain the confusion, the fear. But monster-man seemed to know that, because he was using the words for her. Words like "decay".

"Really _touch _her, Charlotte. _Feel_ her. Can you feel that she is gone? That what made her your Mommy has gone away?"

The man was so calm, so rational. Was that the right word? Logical? He was telling her to touch her mother, and her mother was dead, there was only a body left, but no "consciousness", no mind. And Charlotte knew, she knew not only in her brain but also in her stomach, that Mommy would never be coming back. Not to this body. And that thought was enough to make her dizzy. She staggered back and felt her stomach twist, like invisible fingers were playing with it, like it was play-doh and ghosts were kneading it. And then the back of her eyes and her nose were burning and her stomach was full of air and force and she threw up foamy acid all over the bed.

The monster-man sighed again, almost as if he was disappointed.

"I want you to watch this. But I don't want you to contaminate the crime scene," and he suddenly had a glass of milk for her. The same milk he had tried to give Mommy. Charlotte looked up at him, her face streaked with tears.

"What will it do?" she asked him, because she already knew that drinking the milk wasn't really a choice. She had to drink it. If she didn't drink it, something else would happen. Charlotte wasn't sure what the "something else" would end up being, but she knew there would most definitely be a something else. Monsters always had many plans, they had plans and they had more plans to use if their first plan didn't work out.

"It will make you feel better. You won't feel like crying. And you won't get sick again."

Charlotte took the milk. Took a sip. It seemed to ease the burning almost-pain in her stomach. She took another sip and then was drinking it all. The monster-man was watching her, and his eyes seemed to sparkle even more, shine even more, as if the act of drinking the milk excited him. When she was done he took the glass from her hands and put it on Mommy's bedside dresser, the one with the pink lamp on top where she usually kept a novel for reading in bed. The novel on the bedside dresser right now was something called "The Celestine Prophecy". Charlotte hadn't been able to read the title at first, so she had asked Daddy and he had told her, and then told her what a prophecy was ("something which people think is going to happen in the future, but nobody has any proof. A prophecy is like a story about what the future will bring that people take very seriously, Charlie") and then they had practiced sounding-out the title together, and now she could read the title of the book, no problem. She still wasn't sure what Celestine meant, but it didn't matter, not now. The man put the empty milk glass on top of the book and the front cover went flat under its weight.

"I want you to sit on the bed, Charlotte. We'll sit and wait."

"Wait?"

"There is medicine in that milk. It will make it... _easier_ for you to learn." The man said, and Charlotte caught the smile in his eagle-eyes again, like a wink of light that was impossible to explain. What were eagles also called? Daddy had used another word for them before, when they had been watching that movie about dinosaurs in a park, Jurassic Park. Oh yes. That's right. Daddy had called them raptors. Eagles were raptors. Hawks were raptors. Crows weren't raptors, not really, because crows mainly ate things that were already dead. But any bird that hunted? Birds of prey were raptors.

And this man was one of them, this man was a raptor, even though his body looked like a human being- Homo Sapien- on the outside. Inside? Inside he was really a raptor. Charlotte was certain of it.

She waited on the bed. She waited because he had told her to do it, and because she knew in her bones (that was a term Daddy had used which meant to feel something deeply, "in your bones") that if she tried to disobey something bad would happen. She waited. The monster-raptor-man got up and he went to the corner of the bedroom where Mommy and Daddy kept their CD player. He pulled a CD out of his pocket and opened the CD player and put his CD in. He pressed a few buttons and some fancy music came on. Charlotte watched him. He seemed to look farther away then he should have looked, less distinct around the edges, and she was starting to feel fuzzy, and relaxed, like she had just taken a long warm bath. The man came back and he knelt down and he handed her his hand to shake.

"I'm John," he said, and his gleaming raptor eyes scanned over her face like he was looking for something. Charlotte took his hand because she knew it was expected. They shook hands.

"Do you know who is playing this music?" John asked. Charlotte shook her head and glanced over at the CD player. She didn't know what she felt right now. She didn't know what her emotions were anymore. They seemed to be getting scrambled up inside her head but whatever had been in the milk was also making it so she didn't really care that everything was scrambled up.

"This is a song by a man called Bawk."

"Bawk?" Charlotte repeated.

"Bawwwck. B-A-C-H. Bach."

Charlotte blinked. Looked at her hands. There was a fine ghost of each hand hovering over the real hands, like double hands. Like her soul was coming out. When she moved her hands she could see the second-hands trail behind them. It was weird, but also... kind of funny. For a second she forgot Mommy lying so still and dead on the bed and giggled.

"Feeling better?" John said and his voice was happy now. Charlotte looked at him. His words were weird. She knew what each word he was saying meant, but still, all together, she couldn't figure out what he was saying. There was no meaning in the words. She stared and replayed his words back to herself.

"_Feeling better_," Charlotte repeated. She blinked again. No. Still made no sense. But John was smiling now, a full smile, like he was happy.

"I can see that you are. How about we begin?" He said, and his voice went up at the end as if he was asking her a question, but Charlotte knew it was what Daddy would call a rhetorical question. A question you are not really supposed to answer. So she didn't answer it.

As she watched, he went over to Mommy. Moved her body so she was sitting up. He was now... now he was taking off her clothes. Her pyjamas. He was fast, but gentle too. He even took off her panties. When she was unclothed, He laid her so her stomach was against the blankets, back facing up. Charlotte watched. He removed a knife from his pocket, a long, flat knife with a curved edge.

"What are you doing?!" Charlotte said, and she wanted her words to be more upset, but they came out flat and bored.

"You're going to want to be paying attention here," John said. And then, just like that, just like it wasn't the biggest mistake that anyone had ever made, he pushed the knife into Mommy's back. A little bit of blood came out. Just a little. Not much. John turned his eagle eyes to her and, as if he was reading her mind, said:

"She won't bleed much. She won't bleed much because her heart has already stopped beating. So there is no pump to force the blood out."

Charlotte looked down at her mother's smooth, pale skin. John was right. A little bit of blood was coming out, but not very much. Not nearly as much as you'd expect from a wound that deep. John made a deep slit in Mommy's back and Charlotte watched, dumbfounded, as John's fingers disappeared inside the cut. They disappeared inside Mommy, wriggled down inside her back and a few seconds later (but it could also have been hours) they were tugging on bags. Bags were being pulled out of Mommy's back! Little pink bags! Little pink yellowy bags with strings on them! Charlotte stared at the bags hanging out of her mother's back. John had some clear thread in his hands now, and was sewing the thread into the bags.

He looked up and caught her eyes and grinned.

"These are your mother's lungs. But... don't they sort of look like wings?"

Charlotte glanced down at the wings again. The bags. There was blood on the outside of them. The man- John- was pulling on the clear string he had sewn into them and the bags were coming up into the air like real wings and... Charlotte followed his movements. Saw him tie the clear string to hooks in the ceiling. Then he took a rag out of his pocket and wiped his hands off and moved Mommy so she was sort of sitting up in bed. She was sitting up, and from Charlotte's position at the end of the bed, she looked like an angel with strange, bloody wings. A naked, bloody angel.

When John was finished rearranging her mother, he looked back at the child.

"Are you ready for the big surprise, Charlie?" He said. Charlotte knew that this was another rhetorical question. She said nothing.

"Wait here one moment, will you? Don't _wander off now_..." and he chuckled at the end of his comment, like the idea of her wandering off was silly. Which, given how much everything was moving and how far away the floor had become, it probably was. And then he disappeared into the black of the hallway, and she heard his feet on the stairs, going down into the dark hall and the dark first floor. And some time later (it was hard to gauge how long John was gone) he came back carrying a big doll wrapped up in a white blanket. Charlotte could see the feet of the doll dangling as he carried her, and her blonde curls, and for a second- just a second- Charlotte thought this this doll was a gift, like the American Girl doll she had in her room that looked like her. John laid the doll down on the bed and opened up the blanket and Charlotte could see that it wasn't a doll, after all, but a little girl with wide-open shiny eyes and her chest was still, too. And her lips... her lips were blue-purple. Her skin was so pale, so white.

Charlotte knew she was dead, too. Just like Mommy was dead. John cut into her back, too, with the same knife he had used on Mommy, and removed her wings too, and stitched the clear string into them so they stood up on their own and when he was done he painted Mommy's face red, and the girl's face red with some redness he had with him in a little jar. The girl's face he tilted into Mommy's chest, against her breasts, so that you could only see one small part of one wide-open eye. The golden hair, he arranged around her face, a tight halo.

"Are they pretty, Charlotte? A pretty mommy and baby?"

Charlotte stared at her naked, dead mother and the little girl, at the blood-red faces and the pulled-out lungs and heard the Bach music, so pretty and quaint, and felt a part of her mind crack. She could almost hear it, like the sound glass made when it broke from heat or the sound of ice cracking, shrrrrrrrrrekkkkkkk. That was the sound of her mind splitting.

"Pretty as a picture," the man named John said. "Should we leave the music on for Daddy? Do you think he'd like that? I think he'd like that."

Charlotte glanced back at the CD player. The music was still going. The same song was playing over and over and over again. It had played at least five times so far. At least five times. Maybe a lot more.

The man named John was now looking at her, and Charlotte felt an energy in her belly that was a distant relative of panic. She had been unable to stop watching him, and unable to move as he had worked. But now the knife was away. On the wall, looking down at her, was a smiley face. A smiley face made out of blood or something red, the same red he carried with him in that little jar.

"We better be going now. It's later than we know-"

Something about the word "going" made her body wake up. That word "going" was so final, and even through the haze of the medicine she knew that that word "going" meant she'd never see Daddy again. John was still fussing about with the clear strings coming out of the lungs from the dead bodies (_from Mommy, Mommy is a dead body now_) and Charlotte felt her body beneath her and jumped off the bed. She ran out into the hallway jerkily, as if made of rubber, and already she could hear the sound of John coming after her. She ran towards the staircase and was aiming to run down it, but her feet got tripped up on something and she was crashing down the stairs and into the darkness below, a small scream coming out from the back of her throat and around that time there was a sharp, loud cracking noise that filled the air, and a second after that crack came a white-hot pain screaming at her from her right arm and wrist. She sat up and tried to crawl away, but her arm screamed at her again and through the haze of the milk's medicine she could see white-yellow bones sticking out of her arm and blood... blood was running down her arm and dripping quite heavily on the hardwood floor. And suddenly this was all real, and she knew she wasn't dreaming and she knew the tall, dark figure coming slowly down the stairs towards her was _real_, and he was really coming for her, more real than any monster she had ever heard about or even thought about or dreamed about, this shadowy man with his gleaming, bright eyes so much like mercury, coming so slowly towards her, so slowly and so calmly...

And she screamed. She opened her mouth and out came a wail of anguish and terror, and nothing about the man changed, except that now the small smile on his face was bigger, more impressive, as if her screams were his food, and he'd been hungry. And despite herself, she screamed again, louder, a long wail of pain and terror, an _AAEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE_

* * *

"Aeeggghhhhhhh!" Charlotte shouted and came back to awareness. Instantly, almost faster than instantly, she was aware of being in a moving car and knew within a second that her father, Patrick Jane, was driving. His partner, that Lisbon woman, turned in her seat immediately. She could see her father's eyes checking on her in the rear view mirror.

"Charlotte? You okay?" Patrick said.

"I'm fine!" Charlotte huffed, but her skin was wet with sweat and when she shrugged a few drops of sweat fell down her face. She blinked and tried to clear the images from her mind. Her hair was damp, she could feel sweat running down the back of her neck, staining her shirt (it was starting to smell a little funky). Patrick was still watching her in the rear view mirror, as if she might suddenly freak out. She sought his eyes out, tried on a glare.

"I'm fine, Patrick," she said again, this time more firmly and he nodded and she saw his eyes shift back to the road.

"Must have been one hell of a nightmare," he said, and his voice was light, but she knew his type and knew that she'd caught his attention. People like Patrick Jane were like terrier dogs. When you caught their attention, you didn't lose it easily.

"No nightmare. Just too hot. Made my heart skip a beat."

"Oh?" He said in a neutral tone. Charlotte didn't buy his act for one second. His eyes were bright and curious, like Red John's, when Red John smelled weakness. Charlotte forced herself to slow down, deliberately tried to work on her breathing. But she knew that both Patrick and Teresa Lisbon were aware that she was sweaty, and breathing fast. Patrick was a mentalist, so studying people was what he did and Teresa Lisbon was a detective and, from what Charlotte had read, not half-bad at her job. Charlotte's arm was aching. She pulled up the sleeve of her army jacket, rubbed the one inch white keloid scar with her left pointer finger gently. The movement caught Patrick's eyes again and she immediately pulled her army jacket's sleeve down and sent him another glare.

"You might not be as hot if you take your jacket off," Patrick said knowingly. Charlotte avoided his eyes. Ignored his words. Unzipped her bag and pulled out her mp3 player. In the bottom of her bag she'd brought along an AC wall charger for the MP3 player, which could plug into any standard wall outlet. Great buy. She'd purchased it for 2 dollars and 73 cents off amazon. She had over 2,000 songs on her mp3 and a collection of short scary stories narrated by the one and only Vincent Price. The Vintage Radio Shows.

Charlotte eased the earbuds into her ears and turned the mp3 player on, scrolled through the songs until she came to what she wanted. Something fun and upbeat to wake her up and scare away the boogey man. An old "suspense" radio show called "Hunting Trip" narrated by Vincent Price. But first, the old-timey commercial.

_...For your enjoyment by Roma wines. That's R-O-M-A. Roma wines. Those excellent California wines that can add so much pleasantness to the way you live, to your happiness in entertaining guests, to your enjoyment of everyday meals. Yes, right now a glass full would be very pleasant as Roma wines brings you... Suspense! It began with a little hunting trip..._

She see Patrick watching her in the rear view mirror again, eyes flickering from her to the road. She more pointedly ignored him. Pulled Bunsen out of the backpack and used him as a pillow. But the images in her head wouldn't go away, the throbbing in her arm, that slightly bitter milk from the dream glowing pale blue in the dim light of her mother's bed(death?)room and the way she'd puked just before it, hot and angry adrenaline-puke. Had she puked? Already the dream (but really, she knew it was so much more than a mere dream) was fading away, ebbing away, but she could suddenly taste that damned milk as if she had just taken a sip, room temperature whiteness with a bitter, sickly sweetness in it and Charlotte sat back up, feeling sicker, head suddenly spinning like a CD in a player. She pulled the earbuds out of her ears and Vincent Price's voice cut off sharply.

"Stop the car, Patrick," Charlotte said tightly, and shut her eyes against the surging wave of nausea. She would not get sick in this car. _She would not get sick in this car_. Patrick, to his credit, immediately pulled the car over onto the side of Interstate 5, no questions asked. Charlotte was tugging open the back door before the car had completely stopped. She scurried a few feet from the car, leaned over, and threw up the fries and grilled cheese she'd eaten in that stupid diner a little over an hour ago, now partially digested. Another wave of nausea hit and she was bent over and gagging, vomiting into the hot November dust that lined the side of the California interstate.

She heard Patrick's door open and slam shut, distantly, as if he inhabited another world. Charlotte kept her eyes screwed shut, hands on her thighs. Gagged out the last of her sickness, when another wave hit and her stomach convulsed again, her throat worked and spasmed, trying to eject acid. The back of her throat and her sinuses were burning with chunky vomit.

She could feel Patrick behind her, he had come over to her. Was standing over her, his shadow warped over her bent body. He seemed afraid to touch her, unsure of what to do. Her head was pulsing and felt tinny and unreal, like a balloon bobbing above her shoulders, and she kicked at the mess in the dust, forced herself up and turned scornful eyes to her father.

"I told you I wasn't hungry earlier," she said angrily. Patrick nodded sadly.

"Probably got food poisoning or something," Charlotte clarified.

"I don't think that's it," Patrick said gently, not wanting to fight, but obviously not misled. Charlotte stared at him, hard, and the eyes looking back at her were both gentle and knowing. Eyes that you couldn't really, rationally, be angry at for very long. And for some reason, that made her even angrier.

"Next gas station we come to we'll stop, get some bottled water, okay? And baby wipes?" Patrick's words were so soft and so careful. There was a strange, not-human kindness in them that Charlotte wasn't used to and didn't know how to process.

"I have Pepsi in my bag," she told her father, walking back to the car. He said nothing and when she looked over at him she caught him staring at her, uncertain.

"What?!" Charlotte snapped, head pulsing with pain. Migraine? Maybe. Maybe this was a migraine. Migraines could trigger puking spells.

"Pepsi? I thought you boycotted Pepsi?"

"This is old Pepsi. I had a lot of it," Charlotte said, as if that explained everything. Jane continued to watch her. Studying her. So many unvoiced questions. And, if he knew what was good for him (_for them both_) he'd never ask those questions.

"I have two cans. I will give Lisbon one, if she wants it."

A beat of silence.

"We'll still stop for water. Okay?"

"Yeah. If you want," Charlotte muttered, pulled the back door open and got back in. Lisbon glanced over at her, gave her what was obviously meant to be a sympathetic smile. Charlotte nodded back. Couldn't quite bring herself to smile back at the woman, but at least Lisbon wasn't grilling her like Patrick.

"That food Patrick fed us? I bet I got food poisoning from it."

"I hope not," Lisbon said softly. Jane was still outside, back to the car, face turned away from both of them. Charlotte looked over at him. Scowled.

"What's he doing?" She asked Lisbon. Leaned forward in her seat to look out the window. Shrugged. Charlotte tugged at the door, leaned out into the early evening. In a little over a half hour, the sun would be going down.

"Patrick? You wanted to get water?"

Jane turned around immediately, ran a hand through his sun-streaked hair. Smiled at his child, but his eyes looked tired, clouded with some unnamable emotion. He came jogging around to the driver's side door. Charlotte tapped Lisbon on the shoulder. Lisbon turned to the girl.

"He looks pale, see?"

"I... maybe," Lisbon allowed.

"See, I bet you that food was bad. Bet you money. Bet you ten dollars."

Jane had gotten back in the car now and turned his head to watch the exchange.

"You bet Lisbon money for what?" He asked Charlotte, eyes darting between his child and his partner.

"I bet Lisbon ten bucks that food you gave us makes us all sick."

"So far you're the only one who has gotten sick," Jane teased gently. Charlotte stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out his angle. Finally nodded.

"Yeah. But you're pale."

"Am I?" Jane asked innocently, risking a glance at Lisbon.

"Yes," Charlotte confirmed.

Jane started the car up again. He looked over at Lisbon, and some message passed between them.

"I was thinking of stopping for some bottled water and snacks and stuff at the next Chevron we come to?" Jane said, eyes on Lisbon. She nodded. Jane raised his voice, still aiming his comment at Lisbon but intending for Charlotte, obviously, to pay attention to it, too.

"If you guys want anything, let me know. I think when we pull in for gas, you should duck down, Charlotte. Okay?"

"Yeah. Okay," Charlotte said from the back seat. Jane watched her face for a moment, but he knew she understood, and that she understood why it was important to keep a low profile.

"Even better?" Jane said, and pulled a pen out of his pocket, a scrap of paper. "Write down anything you want. Then I'll pick it up when I pay for the gas. Okay?"

"Yeah," Charlotte said, and took the paper from him.

"We're going to want to stay on the road. So if you need to go to the bathroom-"

"Don't have to-" Charlotte cut him off.

"But if you change your mind," Jane said, and let it drop.

He reached over, turned the air conditioning on. Pulled the car back onto the I-5. The storm clouds that had been threatening 45 minutes ago loomed closer, dark and bruised purple, across the sky. The air was hot and humid, and smelled vaguely of electricity and the approaching night. The light was almost gray-green now, eerie and flat light.

They were on the road 5 minutes when the first rain drops hit the windshield. The light of the day was now almost gone, even though it wasn't yet 5:30. The clouds were blocking out the late-day sunlight, and the air was hotter still.

"Great," Charlotte muttered, eyes focused at the looming storm clouds, and she lay down tiredly in the backseat.

"Try to put some food down on that list that doesn't come out of a box or bag, okay?" Jane said, eyes never leaving the road.

"Like what?"

"Fruit or something. Sandwiches?"

There was a drawn-out sigh from the backseat.

"Do bananas fit your criteria?" Charlotte said after a moment.

"Bananas are fine," Jane said and caught Lisbon's eyes. She grinned back at him.

The heavens opened up then with a loud crack and lightning arced across the sky in an electric surge. Jane caught his daughter wince and sit up out of the corner of his eye. Her eyes were suddenly wide open, round. She blinked hard, seemed to trace the trail of rain down her window with her finger. A moment later there was a clap of thunder and Charlotte jerked in her seat.

"Just thunder," Jane said calmly, placatingly. Charlotte ignored him.

A few minutes later she handed Lisbon her list and the pen. She had written: Dr. Pepper, t-shirt, banana. Jane looked over at the list. Grinned.

"You want a t-shirt?"

"I need another t-shirt. I need to wash this one in the sink."

And then she fell silent again. Jane glanced over at Lisbon. Raised his eyebrows. Realized she needed gear, too.

They were just outside Modesto. There had to be a Walmart or something around here.

* * *

**Thursday, November 1st, 2013 6:02 P.M. P.S.T.**

"Lisbon- it might be better if-" Jane suggested. They were in a Walmart parking lot in Modesto, California. Jane knew it would take him much longer to get the basics. He'd never actually been in a Walmart before, and more than that, he wanted to stay with Charlotte. Lisbon glanced back at the sleeping figure, the corners of her mouth tweaking up in a tender smile.

"You want me to shop?" She asked, only a trace of amusement in her voice as she looked back at Jane.

"If you wouldn't mind. I am not sure what to buy. It'll be faster if you do it," Jane said, and gave Lisbon an annoyingly optimistic smile. He handed her the list. To it he had added: toothbrushes, brown hair dye, toothpaste, bread, jam. Lisbon looked at his list. Raised an eyebrow.

"This is what you guys think you need for a life on the lam, is it?" Lisbon said, and smiled tolerantly at Jane. Jane, voice low, shrugged.

"Never actually done this before," Jane said, and gave her his best puppy dog face.

"I can pick up some stuff, but... I mean..." Lisbon glanced over at Charlotte, who was still fast asleep. "We can't just stay on the road forever. Eventually-"

"Not now, Lisbon," Jane said sternly, voice still low. He glanced down at his watch.

"What time do you have? I have 3 minutes after 6."

Lisbon glanced down at her own watch. "I have 4 minutes after. Give me... half an hour."

Jane nodded. She could see the anxiety on his face, now. The idea of getting caught. Of his child disappearing into the clutches of the "police", never to return. Would he lose his mind if that happened? Neither Lisbon or Jane had verbalized the idea outloud, but both felt he might go irrevocably insane if Charlotte were to "disappear" at this point in the game.

"I'll be as fast as I can," Lisbon said, peering out into the pelting rain.

"You're going to get wet," Jane offered helpfully, and smiled at her again. She nodded.

"Oh, yeah, here... use cash." Jane said. He tugged two hundred dollar bills from his wallet and handed them to Lisbon, like a magic trick. Of course he would have brought a wallet with him, and of course he would have a fair amount of cash. No doubt he had a few credit cards registered to different people in his possession, too. And what he didn't have, he'd win somehow. Lisbon was convinced they'd be fine, as far as money went. That wasn't the concern. No. Returning to their regular scheduled lives? That was starting to look more and more unlikely.

"Is two hundred enough?" Jane asked her as she pocketed the money.

"For some basic food and a change of clothes? Should be fine."

"Or whatever you need. Here, take another two hundred," Jane said, and dug another pair of bills out of his pocket. Lisbon didn't protest. She didn't think she'd actually have time to get much, but it was better to be prepared. Already, she was making a mental list of what they were going to need.

"I don't know her size," Lisbon said, voice still low, as she pulled her own wallet out of her pocket and carefully laid the bills inside.

"She's small. Girl's medium, if they have such a thing? She seems to like baggy clothes," Jane said fondly. "Oh? And Lisbon? Her favourite colour is green."

"Green," Lisbon repeated softly. Smiled. "Got it. For you? A sweatshirt okay? Jeans?"

"Whatever you think I'll look best in," Jane said, and his smile got wider. Lisbon snorted and opened the passenger side door, ran to the front doors. She was almost soaking by the time she got to the front of the store. She glanced back to see Jane grinning at her, giving her a thumb's up sign.

"Yeah, right, Jane," Lisbon murmured. She grabbed a cart and disappeared into the store.

* * *

Lisbon moved fast. She knew Jane's sizes. They'd been on a few cases before where Jane's suit had been damaged or dirtied and she'd had to commandeer him clothing. Into the basket she tossed two pairs of dark blue jeans in Jane's size, two pairs of lighter jeans in her own size. Fruit of the Loom sweatpants, socks and briefs for Jane. A package of underwear and socks for herself. A package of fruit of the loom underwear and socks for Charlotte (they looked to be the right size). One pair green and blue pajama lounge pants with drawstring for Charlotte and a larger pair, purple, for herself (colours were hardly important right now). Three bottles deodorant (two lady speedsticks and one stick of Old Spice for Jane). An electric shaver for Jane, a box of Just for Men brown hair dye and a bottle of aftershave. Three tubes of assorted toothpaste (one Crest, one Aquafresh, one Colgate), three toothbrushes (one blue, one pink, one green), three spools of waxed dental floss. A bottle of suave shampoo. A four-pack of mens' crew t-shirts and two hooded sweat shirts (one grey, one dark blue) for Jane. Two pastel t-shirts for herself, a thin blouse and a dark denim jacket. Charlotte stumped her. The teen was tiny, tomboyish. Lisbon eventually settled on two pale green t-shirts from the junior's section, two dark green hooded sweatshirts.

Lisbon glanced at her watch. Not bad. She had been in the store 23 minutes and had never shopped faster. On her way to the grocery section she found luggage and added a a black tote bag to the cart for Jane and a cheap gray luggage bag for herself. She selected a camouflage style bag for Charlotte. It was the only thing approaching green in the luggage section. Lisbon glanced back down at her watch again, fully aware that every minute she was in here was a minute Jane was in the car, worrying. Creating disasters in his head.

She'd been in the Walmart 29 minutes now. Lisbon pushed the cart to the grocery section. Quickly added a 12 pack of Dr. Pepper, several bottles of water, a box of Oolong tea, eight bananas, 6 pre-made sandwiches (2 roast beef, 2 egg salad, 2 ham and cheese), 6 cup-of-noodles in assorted flavours, 2 4-packs of Kraft Easy Mac, a jar of instant coffee, a pack of 160 assorted plastic utensils, a tub of wet wipes, a 12 pack of assorted pudding cups and the bread and strawberry jam Jane had asked for. In the line up she added a MAD magazine, four packs of assorted gum and 6 chocolate bars to the total. She had been in the store 37 minutes when she was through paying for everything, pushing the cart back into the parking lot. The total was 367.83. Jane, instantly, perked up behind the wheel when he saw her and came out to help load the car.

Charlotte had woken up and was lying in the back seat, head down. Lisbon handed her a bag and the teen went through it curiously.

"Are these green t-shirts for me?" She asked Lisbon.

"Yes. You... Jane said you like green."

Charlotte didn't respond, but pulled the t-shirts out. Tore the tags off them, unzipped her backpack and crammed them inside.

"These dark green sweatshirts are for me too?"

Lisbon smiled.

"Yes. They're too small for me."

Charlotte nodded and tore the tags off these, too. Into the backpack they went.

"What's this?" The teen said, picking out the MAD magazine.

"I, um... I thought you might like to read that," Lisbon said, trying to sound casual. Charlotte flipped open the magazine, looked at for a second, then continued pawing through the bag. She pulled out a chocolate bar- a Kit Kat- tore the wrapper off and began to eat. Jane had loaded the last of the gear into the trunk of the car, and came back carrying a bag with the pre-made sandwiches, some of the bananas, three bottles of water and a few cans of Dr. Pepper. Lisbon watched the teen. She ate the candy bar quickly, almost furiously, as if she were being timed or someone might take the candy away from her. Jane got back into the driver's seat and shut the door.

By the time he had put his belt back on and inserted the keys, Charlotte was done the candy and had carefully hidden the wrapper in her jeans' pocket.

Jane handed the bag of sandwiches back to the teen. She riffled through it, pulled out a can of Dr. Pepper and popped the tab. The storm had stopped a good ten minutes earlier. It was 6:51 p.m. by the time they got back on the road, full dark now.

Lisbon glanced back at the girl ten minutes later, and found her reading the MAD magazine, eyes glued to the page. Charlotte was holding a tiny little flashlight and was aiming it at the pages of the magazine studiously. She read something topically amusing and chuckled to herself. Lisbon looked over at Jane, whose own lips curved up in a smile at the sound of his daughter's laughter

* * *

At 8:23 they stopped at a Mobil and Jane filled the tank while Charlotte used the bathroom, carrying a key attached to a dented wheel rim. The inside of the bathroom was dirty, covered with graffiti ("Mike likes Lisa, but loves Sheralynn" "Have anal sex" "Ctrl + Alt + Delete"), the light flickered and there was a large, brown moth flying around frantically, body hitting against the mirror with soft tapping noises. Charlotte peed and as she did so she stared at the moth and wondered about its frantic moments. Was it scared? Was it thinking at all, or were the moth's movements simply reflexes? Was it self aware? Did it have a soul? Did it ponder its existence, or merely respond to stimuli, an insect automaton? Done peeing, she wiped, flushed the toilet and zipped her jeans back up. She reached out, tugged the door open and held it ajar in the cooling night.

"Go on, you're free," she said, sotto voce. The moth battered its powdery wings against the flickering fluorescent light, sending a pale fluttery shadow over the off-white painted concrete walls. A frantic, insect-generated interplay of light and shadow.

"Leave. The door is open. Go!" Charlotte ordered, and her words were slightly more animated this time. But the insect was not listening to her, it was enamored with the light, the electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths in the 390 to 700 nanometer range. Could this creature see ultraviolet wavelengths? Extremely short wavelengths? Or infrared, the wavelengths that were longer than humans could see? Goldfish could see both. It didn't matter, though, not really. Strip all the facts and trivia aside and the moth was still trapped in a concrete cell, seeking out light that had no consciousness and which could never serve it or pay it back with any attention of its own. Sad, really, that simple creature's priorities. The door was wide open, and yet, that moth would never leave. Not if the light remained on. Charlotte turned the light off and blackness flooded the room, an instant visual void. Slowly the objects in the bathroom began to come into focus as her vision adjusted. She held the door open, could smell the wet-stormy smell of the early November California air, could almost smell the powdery furred body of the insect flapping around in the dark with such tragic devotion. Something soft and light as a fairy tapped against her face, the creature in the darkness, set momentarily free from its obsession.

"Go. The light is off. Go now," she said, a bit louder. She hummed and waited and after a half-minute, thought the animal must have freed itself. She turned the light back on to check. The moth had landed on the wall near the sleeping bulb, waiting, waiting for the light to return, almost as if it knew the light was only temporarily missing, but would soon return. As if dying in a concrete room that smelled faintly of other people's piss and shit was somehow loyality.

_No._ No, that was stupid. Moths didn't think. They weren't capable of higher thought. Its frantic, continued flapping was proof of that.

It would never leave. Not ever. Charlotte stared at it sullenly.

"Stupid thing," she said, irritated. It was flapping around the buzzing, humming bulb again, almost as if it wanted the light to pay attention to it.

But the light would never pay attention to it.

Back in the car, back in the back seat, Charlotte pretended to riffle through her backpack, but in reality her thoughts were consumed with that stupid moth. It would die in that bathroom. It would never be free again, and for some reason the girl couldn't process, that thought made her profoundly, inexplicably melancholy.

_Christ, Charlotte, get a grip._ Getting upset over an insect was just plain idiotic.

"Good?" Jane said from his position behind the wheel as she pulled her buckle on. Charlotte sought out his eyes and nodded and for a second she was certain he had seen the sadness in her face, but he didn't dare ask about it. She knew he wouldn't ask much. He was careful around her, his long-lost daughter, the daughter he hadn't even bothered to make sure was really dead all those long, terrible nights ago. The air conditioning in the car had been off since a little after nightfall and the radio was on, but on low, as a comforting background noise more than true entertainment. She'd only been in Patrick Jane's company a little less than two days, but already she was growing used to him and his mannerisms and presence. He was a tricky one, Patrick was. Always aware, constantly paying attention to every little thing. Every sigh, every movement on her part and he perked up in his seat, his eyes shifted and he sought her out in the rear view mirror. Charlotte knew he paid attention to everything because she, for her part, also paid attention to everything. Lisbon? Well, Lisbon was bright and capable, but worried. She had left her life, just up and left it hanging like a body dangling from a noose and Charlotte knew the woman's thoughts were consumed with worries and hypothetical future scenarios involving the FBI and coming back to work and "making this right". Charlotte knew Lisbon's type. Loyal as Lisbon was, she was still a career woman and she still wanted something of a life and a career and a reputation to go back to.

Patrick wasn't career-oriented, not one bit. Charlotte knew that and what she didn't know from his comments and behavior she could sense on an instinctive level. Patrick was obsessed with Red John, and now that he had her- Charlotte- in his possession he was obsessed with her, too, because she was the closest he'd ever been to Red John. John had told her that Patrick was obsessed, was more obsessed with vengeance then anything else in the world and Charlotte was pretty sure John had been right about that. What she wasn't sure about was when and how Patrick would grill her. When would he want to pry open her memories and get at her secrets so he could get to Red John? How would he go about such a task? No doubt he would be intentionally tactful and careful and "kind" about his questions, but questions there would be, Charlotte had no doubt about that.

She was just another stepping stone to Red John. His daughter, biologically, but just another puzzle piece to be manipulated into a larger picture.

Lisbon, for her part, was more or less silent in the passenger seat, inscrutable and watchful, consumed with thoughts of her own fading life. No doubt she was asking herself what she was doing here, in this car, with Patrick Jane and his nutcase kid. No doubt she was regretting her decision to take off with them.

Why had she come with them, anyway? What was in this for her? It was puzzling.

* * *

**Thursday, November 1st, 2013 9:15 P.M. P.S.T.**

The man who called himself Red John was furious. He wouldn't let it show on the surface, of course, even though he was alone. Such overt displays of emotionalism were contraindicated by the very pathology that had guided and formed his life since the earliest days of his childhood. Not that he wasn't capable of being theatrical, because he most definitely was a thespian of the highest order. But losing control of himself and spinning off into rage or anxiety like a common human, one of the puppets he toyed with... that was unthinkable. _No._ When Red John was angry, you knew, but nothing obvious told you, all the cues were subliminal, as if the very fires of Hell were burning in his eyes, just below a thin veil of humanity. All of these things you knew about him instinctively, without being told.

He'd known his protégée was restless, was even possibly anxious. But he hadn't seen this coming, not really. Oh, he'd considered it, that she might try to run. But he hadn't really thought she would, and as such, he had been more or less unprepared. He'd had her in his possession a decade and had grown certain of her loyality to him.

But she hadn't been loyal to him, had she? No. This was proof of it, of her lack of feality.

_Charlotte._ Charlotte was a strange one, and her strangeness had been almost precious to him, a challenge and an amusing plaything amongst a species of creatures who were- for the most part- uniformly boring and predictable. Charlotte was anything but predictable. Even her unpredictablity was unpredictable. When he was around her he didn't feel as if anyone was fated to be anything, and that lack of a sense of everything being fated was inspiring. The exhilirating sense of "free will" (illusion which it no doubt was) that he'd learned to bask in around her was now gone. Now, standing in the middle of her apartment, Red John allowed a tiny bit of his anger at her loss to seep to the surface.

He'd invested so much time in her. Training her. Guiding her. Showing her that life could be different from the ordinary, monotonous drudgery her own birth-parents had had planned for her. And how had she repaid him?

She'd trashed her apartment and disappeared. All the aquariums housing the various specimens she'd seen fit to collect over the years had been broken, destroyed. Shattered. One of the special heat lamps over the largest of the aquariums was flickering wildly, a staggering jerk of light like an SOS being blinked out. Red John sighed to himself and wandered through the apartment. The house smelled of burnt Jiffy-pop popcorn and marijuana. He opened the fridge. Two six packs of beer, a jug of red liquid (probably cherry Kool Aid) a few random cans of Dr. Pepper and a styrofoam container of Chinese take-out that looked like it had inhabited the fridge for months. _Interesting_. Was this take-out for show? He'd been pretty certain Charlotte didn't eat take-out, or anything prepared directly by humans. He pulled the container out and inspected it. There was a half eaten egg roll with bites missing out of it, covered in congealed plum sauce.

Little details like this were part of what made Charlotte Anne Ruskin-Jane so incredibly _fun_. Red John was very, very certain his young charge would never eat such a thing, yet here was an old take-out container of Chinese food with bites missing. So either she had changed her tune _again_, or even this carefree, rotting container of take-out wasn't nearly as care-free as it appeared to be at first glance. Either possibility was compellingly exciting, because they meant Charlotte wasn't just a plaything, wasn't just a robotic automaton like most humans that could be so easily manipulated and predicted. She was her own tricky, self-aware entity, and her moves were gray areas.

She had always been harder to predict than he'd expected, even as a little girl of five grieving the violent death of her mother and abandonment of her father but over the years she'd only become more tricky. And he had secretly cherished her unpredictable, tortured nature. That said, he'd never really considered that she would leave him, much less that she would leave him to go back to Patrick Jane of all people, the "father" who had so flippantly put his family in danger by publicly mocking and disrespecting a prolific serial killer on National television, the father who hadn't even bothered to check the identities of the bodies he'd found in his master bedroom with their lungs hanging out of the bottoms of their backs in gory ad-hoc tribute to the likes of Bosch.

Red John wanted to scream. Ten years gone. Ten years down the drain on that insolent child, and the second something was asked of her which presented a philosophical dilemma- _to murder or not to murder_- she'd flipped out and flown the coop. How was that for tenacity?

Of course, she could have left and gone to Patrick for other reasons. To subvert him? To recruit him to the cause? To kill him? Those were all potential reasons. But somehow, Red John didn't believe that she had taken off to try and gain Patrick's trust, to sway him into fidelity with his long-time "enemy" or even to kill him. If she had left to do any of those things, why the subterfuge? Why had she left so seemingly on the spur of the moment, without a word to him? Why had she trashed her apartment and freed all the poisonous creatures she had spent years studiously collecting?

As much as he wanted to deny the possibility, he had to face facts: the little bitch had left him. She had gone home to "Daddy".

_She had betrayed him._

And now not only were she and Patrick "missing", but Teresa Lisbon was, as well. One happy little family.

There was a flicker of movement and a snake, one of at least 30, slithered over the tip of the serial killer's booted foot. A dark brown, elegant snake with an olive belly and crossbands and a constantly flickering, black tongue. A tiger snake, otherwise known as Notechis Scutatus. Potentially deadly to humans, if you were unlucky enough to be bitten by it, but generally happy to be left alone. Red John watched the animal for a moment, marvelled at its smooth, almost hypnotic grace. Such a beautiful animal. Elegant, really, but ultimately deadly. Silly for Charlotte to have owned such a dangerous animal, never mind dozens of them, but he had never been one to tell people what to do with their lives. Red John turned away from the reptile and continued on down the hallway.

The bathroom was cluttered with the usual teenage girl paraphernalia: little bottles of hair spray and detangler, Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo (no tears!), containers of scented hand and body cream, a tube of Noxema and a bottle of Nutrogena astringent, bottles of nail polish and tubes of mascara and make up compresses, a small pile of lip glosses in various flavours (Ho-Ho's, Twinkies, Dr. Pepper, Hershey Chocolate, Reese Peanut butter cups and chocolate mint flavours) and containers of foundation. There were two bottles of perfume, one shaped like a cat, kitschy as it was and the other shaped like some cartoon Geisha. Bubble bath and body bath (all these years later and the girl still preferred strawberry-scented toiletries) and a half-full box of Tampex tampons.

There was a tube of aquafresh with the top missing leaking some of the contents onto the side of the "retro" powder blue porcelain sink and a spray can of Glade air freshener scented like apple and cinnamon. Nothing, really, out of order here. Charlotte had never been particularly orderly.

Red John pressed farther down the hall, into his young charge's bedroom. The bed was unmade as usual, knitted green blanket, pillows and assorted stuffed animals were thrown every which way. The rock and metal posters (Ramones, AC/DC, Slayer, Metallica, Iron Maiden) and band flags on the walls were hanging askew. Red John flicked up the light and a set of black lights jumped to life, inciting the black-light posters on the walls to glow. Skeletons on horses glowed in various neon colours, psychedelic creatures sitting on toadstool mushrooms, images from the Bible, more metal band art and glow-in-the-dark constellations which had apparently been glued to the ceiling with... Red John was guessing super-glue of some sort. The effect was disorienting and not just a little crazy and combined with the various lava lamps plugged in and glowing around the room and the half-melted candles left abandoned on dinner plates on the floor one began to wonder if the owner of such a place was ever sober for more than a few sparse moments. On the scarred wooden desk Red John found a pile of crayola crayons melted inside a vintage green glass candy bowl and five Barbie dolls, stripped of their clothes and dismembered with an exacto knife or garden shears or something, covered in red enamel paint (Charlotte had left the paint on the dresser with the lid off and both the bottle and the paintbrush she had used to paint on the "blood" had long since dried to the top of her clothes dresser).

Red John pulled open the closet and stared, expression changing from mild surprise to disdain. Aside from the usual collection of t-shirts and jeans and teenage-girl "accessories", the back of the closet was full of more dismembered and damaged dolls. There were baby dolls with their eyes melted out (most certainly the girl had simply put cigarettes out on the eyes) and their arms hacked off. More barbies, all cut apart, nailed to the back of the wall behind the hanging clothes. Stuffed animals with their stuffing spilling out onto the floor and "blood" painted onto them (red indelible marker and enamel paint, it looked like, served as the blood). There were dolls (these ones looked like Ken dolls or G.I. Joes with the clothes removed) which were blackened and disfigured from having been lit on fire and left to melt away.

It was disturbing. Such behaviour was pointless, was childish and deranged. Inelegant. Taking a life could be a moment of great clarity- philosophically as well as personally. To mock such events by destroying and damaging toys was bizarre at best and disrespectful at worst, a mockery of the very acts which made their lives so glorious.

Red John carefully closed the closet and exited the bedroom. He hadn't found anything that could tell him anymore than he'd already known, or guessed at. Charlotte was a disturbed young woman and she had gotten

scared off by his direction, his support. She'd rather cut toys up then face reality and own up to her own fate.

Sickening. And he'd had such high hopes for her.

* * *

-end of chapter, please review-


	10. Chapter 10

**Title:** Charlotte's Web (Chapter Ten) by Lexikal  
**Rating:** M for graphic violence and language  
**Fandom:** The Mentalist  
**Summary:** Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.

**Author's Note: **Keep the reviews coming guys! This chapter is short (for me) but I wanted to get it out there. I am busy on paintings and sculptures right now. Sorry.

* * *

"I think paranoia can be instructive in the right doses. Paranoia is a skill." ~ John Shirley.

"There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery." ~ Joseph Conrad.

Night's black mantle covers all alike. ~ Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas.

* * *

**Thursday, November 1st, 2013 10:11 P.M. P.S.T.**

Charlotte was feeling restless. She'd never been able to handle being in enclosed spaces, not well, not without the almost-overwhelming urge to tear up paper or hammer on the walls or fiddle with something, anything, something trivial and distracting. And usually, most nights, the girl ran. She would wait until dusk, when the light was just beginning to fade away, the Earth turned from the sun again so that the sky was lit up in oranges and reds, celestial flames, with her shadow so incredibly long and sinewy behind her like some dark spider-thing, following, following... She had read once that at sunset and sunrise the sky appeared pink and red and orange because the white light from the sun was passing through a much longer path in a lower atmosphere (because of the relative position of the Earth to the sun) and the aerosols in the lower atmosphere scattered more "red light". What did that mean exactly? She wasn't sure. She hadn't bothered to really investigate, actually. So, in the end- even after memorizing that little tidbit of trivia- the physics behind it escaped her, though she did realize it all had to do with the position of light.

The position of light decided if there were shadows- or not- and how long they were. At dusk- every day for the last four years, in fact- she had run 8 miles at dusk, heart thudding, lungs burning, legs cramping, as near a sprint as was possible, face turning fuchsia to match the chromatic wash of early night, hands swinging back and forth, back and forth, like pendulums. She'd run as the street lamps flickered on and the sky turned mauve and then royal blue, breathing hard, panting, smelling fresh cut grass and the faint charged aroma of pastel hydrangeas and purple catmint and powder blue forget-me-nots (_no, I'll never forget-), _face hot and dry after the first mile, hand reaching out to gently tap the red letter drop on the corner of Howard and Knight, sneakered feet jumping over the cracked sidewalk on the end of Jamesy. Around the 4th mile- sweat stains under the arm pits, beads of sweat on her forehead- was when the light of the day was replaced with a tired, lazy glow of lavender and the first sprinklers of the evening burst to life, spraying a fine mist over the yards, adding to the soothing _greensmell_ of the grass and this daily running had helped to calm the itchy unease in her stomach and her blood, the burning need of _wrongness_ and disorientation that seemed to pervade every waking moment of her life and which had existed for as long as she could remember.

Running _helped_, and when she did not run, she felt even more on edge and keyed up, like an old tin toy (a little monkey on a bike, perhaps) that has been wound for far too long. Ready to burst or crack or "flip the fuck out".

Last night, some of that energy had been burnt away by trying to manage the terror that had accompanied turning herself into Patrick's custody. Tonight, though, the uneasy beast inside was back, a deep, screaming, thrumming _tantrum_ of energy crackling away hot and electric like a cellular fire, and it was ever-so-hard to sit still and listen to music on the mp3 player and avoid the way Patrick's eyes flickered to look back at her every five minutes, as if he wanted to make sure she hadn't evaporated and left a black nothingness imprinted on the seats of the camry.

His eyes were crafty and aware as a fox's, dark and knowing eyes as they flickered from her to the road to his partner and back again in their eager, penetrating circuit.

Did he expect her to flash out of his existence again, like a shadow burned into the ground after a nuclear bomb's white kiss? She had seen him on the television over the years, always so confident (almost cockily so) but now he was pensive and reserved, offering up small, tender smiles like a child offering their parent macaroni art whenever he saw her looking at him. And she looked at him at those times, and nodded, and tried to smile but it felt fake and awkward. She did not smile, not really. Not to be nice. It was an odd, fake grimace. Social niceties to be "nice".

The urge to get out and run was increasing every second. Patrick, being a mentalist, had to pick up on this. He had to know. Was that why he was glancing back at her more often? Keeping track of her anxiety?

Her legs felt itchy and jumpy and full of speed, full of pent-up miles. Charlotte scrolled through her songs. Opened the little folder containing all the artists and scrolled down to The Ramones. Scrolled through the songs and selected _Beat on the Brat_. The music started up, fast and charged, the way every Ramones song opened itself up.

_Beat on the brat, beat on the brat, beat on the brat with a baseball bat_

_oh yeah, oh yeah, ohh-hooooo!_

_Beat on the brat, beat on the brat, beat on the brat with a baseball bat_

_oh yeah, oh yeah, ohh-hooooo!_

_oh yeah, oh yeah, ohhh-hooooo!_

_What can you do? What can you do?_

_With a brat like that, no, it's not your fault, what can you lose?_

_What can you do? What can you do?_

_With a brat like that, no, it's not your fault, what can you lose? Lose?_

She replayed it several times. Then _Blitzkrieg Bop_. Then _I wanna be sedated_. Patrick's eyes were flickering to look at her a little more often, flickerflickerflciker, she thought. She didn't like it. Eyes that pierced her concentration in the night, powerful eyes, piercing. Of course, she had known he would be like this. Scrutinizing people was what he did.

But it was still irksome, those eyes. Like an itch, she couldn't scratch. Scratch out the all-seeing eyes.

In her backpack, in a little battered altoids mint tin, was some bud. Northern Lights Indica, good stuff. In the front pocket of her pack was her pipe. It was made of glass, it changed colours when you smoked up. Maybe that would help, just a little nip of pot?

"Can we stop?" Charlotte asked, pulling the earbuds from her ears. Patrick's eyes swung in her direction again and she saw a subtle nod of his head.

"You okay?" He asked mildly. What a stupid question. It was obvious what was up, wasn't it?

"Have to go the bathroom," Charlotte informed him, hoping to sound somewhere between bored and pained. He didn't say anything, just nodded. The words they were speaking were not honest words, but they were a dance, a social dance. There was a beat of silence.

"Next Mobil, we'll stop. Okay?"

"Sure."

They didn't stop at the next gas station, though. Patrick found a dilapidated motel and pulled the car into the lot. Lisbon, who had been dosing, seemed to come to. Charlotte sought out Patrick's eyes again, electric green crashing into his noble, alert blue. Green eyes were really just blue eyes with an extra layer of lipids. Green eyes were "fat" blue eyes.

"We should stop for the night. I'll get us a room." Patrick said, his eyes on his daughter, then turning to his partner.

"A room?" Lisbon said, voice sleep-clogged. "Just one?"

"Two beds. I'm not sleeping."

"You have to sleep, Jane-" Lisbon said, voice still fuzzy and tumescent with sleep.

"I'll sleep tomorrow. You can drive."

Charlotte sighed, pulled the back door open and looked at the motel. The Lazy Susan, it was called. The vacancy light was flickering, attracting moths. There was apparently a heated pool on the property and color TV. Charlotte's lips curled up at the fluorescent anachronism.

"Do you want to wait here with Lisbon? I'll be fast," Patrick said, and his words were light and genial, but Charlotte knew it wasn't a request. Patrick wanted to limit how many people saw either one of them. He was no doubt paranoid that the description of the three of them had been all over the news (despite the lack of mention of anything related to them on any of the radio stations). Charlotte shrugged. She had to release the pent-up anxiety, the agitation. But waiting with Lisbon was something that she had no control over, so a shrug was it.

"I need to run. At least a mile. I'll be back in 8 minutes."

"Run?" Patrick said, like he didn't know what the word meant. Lisbon, for her part, was still in the front passenger seat, silent. She had evidently decided that whatever her partner and his long-dead daughter were discussing was none of her business.

"I need to run. I need it," Charlotte said. She couldn't explain better than that, didn't want to think about it anymore than that. She needed to run the way a crack addict needs a hit and she wasn't sure how much she wanted to tell Patrick, anyway. She didn't really know him, did she? Not really.

Memories weren't "knowing", not when the memories she based her knowledge of him on were old and faded and curling like antique photographs left in a trunk. The agitation was building and eventually it would cross over into anxiety, and if that wasn't released... then maybe full-fledged panic.

Charlotte mentally thought of the panic attacks she got in waves as the "neon screams". They felt like being dropped into Hell, pure adrenaline and terror coursing through her veins so intensely it was almost psychedelic- the need to get away from the all-encompassing *fear*, to get safe, to get away from her own body, and heart and brain and memories. That need crashed through her with each heart beat during the attacks, clanging like a war drum from some place both far away and closer-than-close. The way the screams built up silently and fell out of her mouth as moans, then gasps, then shudder-shrieks, then- only two times, but those two times were imprinted forever in her memory- howls of terror. She couldn't let Patrick see that. He could never see that. Not the howls.

She wasn't sure why it was so imperative he never see the neon screams, but it was. She knew it in her core, that it was just not something she could allow to happen.

"Charlotte?" Patrick said, and she realized she had spaced out on him.

"Huh?"

"Can we go for a run in a few hours? When it's light out?" His voice was so gentle, so concerned. He was sitting in the front driver's seat, Lisbon silent (but ever watching) beside him in the passenger seat. His voice was too nice. She hated the sound of it, the gentleness in it. It irritated her, pestered something hot and mean in her. She wanted to yell at him. _No. They couldn't go for a run in a few hours, in a few hours it would be too fucking late_. Then she remembered the little mint tin in her backpack, the little nest of marijuana. Marijuana was hit or miss with anxiety. Sometimes it amped everything up and made it worse, unbearable even. But usually it took the edge off, if she took it soon enough.

"A few hours?" Charlotte repeated. She was trying to think, avoid Patrick's gaze, pay attention to his words and keep the rising tide of fear out of her limbs and her voice. He was staring at her like a hawk now. sharper than sharp. She knew that look, and it made her skin crawl, the intensity of it.

Red John looked at people like that. Like a hawk. Total, 100% focus.

"Would that be okay?" He said softly. So soft. A skilled hypnotist's voice. Tissue-paper soft voice, egg-shell thin words. How could you fight eggshell thin words?

She bit the inside of her cheek. Did he see that? Did he notice? She thought he might have noticed, because his eyes seemed to narrow, just a little. She bit it until she tasted hot, salty copper and the pain licked out from the inside of her cheek like a squirt of citrus, a flash of heat. Less than a second it took.

"That will be okay," Charlotte told him after the pain screamed at her and calmed the rush of wrongness. She even tried out a smile for him, but it felt fake and wooden. He smiled back, but it never reached his eyes.

"Will you stay here with Lisbon while I go and get us a room?"

Charlotte turned her head to Lisbon. Lisbon gave her an awkward grin back, like she didn't know how to look, what to say, but wanted to still look supportive.

"Sure," Charlotte informed her father mechanically.

"And I'll go running with you in a few hours? When it's light out?"

"Sure," Charlotte repeated, this time a bit faster. _Just hurry up and get the damned room already, Patrick, so I can use the fucking bathroom..._

"Okay. I'll be right back. Lisbon? You okay here?" Patrick said, and now Charlotte really wanted to scream, because it seemed almost like Patrick was deliberately drawing this little talk out.

"We're okay, Jane," Lisbon said, sensing Charlotte's growing unease, darting a quick look to the teen, then another- more meaningful- look back to her colleague. "We'll be fine for five minutes."

"I'll be right back," Patrick said, and slipped out of the car. Charlotte watched him as he hurriedly made his way to the little office housing the no-doubt obese motel manager. Charlotte could imagine the motel manager, pock-marked and fat, t-shirt riding up, stuffing his face with Cheetohs and watching a soap opera on an ancient camping television, waiting for people to drift into his life like moths fluttering into a gas station bathroom.

She shut her eyes, counted to ten. Bit the inside of her cheek once more. _She would not lose it. Her arms felt tingly, the hands cold, weak. Weakness in the arms could be a sign of cardiovascular disease, signs of degenerative disorders of the muscles, brain tumors, encephalitis and drug overdose, neurotic conditions and neurological SNAFUs and... _ She would not lose it in this fucking car with Patrick's partner in the front seat like some hostage looking uncertain and uneasy and totally out of place. No. _She would not lose it. She would not..._

"So... you like to run?" Lisbon said in what Charlotte was already coming to think of as the woman's "awkward voice". Charlotte slit her eyes back open like a reptile. Exhaled as quietly as possible. Nodded.

"I used to run," Lisbon continued. Charlotte swallowed. Tried her voice.

"_Oh?_" The car felt airless. But she knew she didn't have asthma. She'd been checked for that.

"Yeah. Track and field. Ninth grade."

"Oh," Charlotte said, and this time it was cut off by a choked sensation. She screwed her eyes shut. Not this shit. Not _now._

"Are you okay?" Lisbon said and her voice sounded tinny. The teen ignored it.

"Charlotte?" Lisbon said from miles away, but the sound was muffled by the roaring of her blood, the sudden high-pitched ringing. There was the sound of the passenger door opening. Footsteps. She counted her breaths and screamed silently for this to pass. Hyperventilating right now would just fuck things up, but it got so hard to remember to breathe when you were dropping into Hell unexpectedly...

"_Hey_," Patrick said, and his voice was closer, somewhere between careful and cajoling. The voice of someone at a fair, trying to get you to play one of those stupid carnival games. _Come on, it's only 3 bucks and everyone wins a prize!_ Charlotte whipped her eyes open.

_"What?!"_

"You're okay, just slow down your breathing-" Jane said, and the cajoling was softer. Back to hypnosis-shit, again.

Charlotte slit her eyes into lines, despite the rising surge of anxiety. Stared at him, almost-but-not-quite-a-glare.

"I need to run... or I get... like this," she said stroppily, the worlds sloppy with breath and fear, as if that explained everything.

"How long have you been having panic attacks?" Jane said conversationally but too-calmly, and she wanted to tell him to mind his own damned business. Anyways, they weren't "panic attacks". They were neon screams. Panic attacks were for regular people. People who hadn't seen Hell. Panic attacks were unwarranted, chemical aberrations. What she got, what Charlotte Ruskin-Jane experienced, were lifestyle events. Like LSD flashbacks. Different thing. She had every right in the world to experience them, she had damn-well_ earned_ them...

"I never panic," Charlotte said from the back of her throat, and clopped her mouth shut so hard her teeth rebounded. Her chin was shivering, her chest was shaking. Fuck this crap. Fucking traitorous body.

Patrick stopped trying to talk to her for a moment. He was talking softly to Lisbon, telling her what room he had gotten. There was the clinking noise of keys being passed. He wanted her out of the way, evidently.

Privacy.

"Nothing to be ashamed about," Patrick said after a handful of moments. He sounded firm and kind and unnaturally good. Lisbon had disappeared somewhere.

"N-not ashamed."

"That's good," he said, and somehow he managed to say those words without sounding too condescending.

"N-not used to being coo-cooped up in a c-car for so loong..._d-damnit_..."

"Adrenaline just has to run its course now."

"N-no s-shhit, Sherrrlock," Charlotte slurred and aimed a glare at him. He gave her a look that couldn't quite be called a smile, not a provoking smile. Kind. Sad.

"Do you want to sit here until you feel better? Or go to the room now?"

She shut her eyes, swam into the inky blackness. No. Not quite inky blackness. The neon lights of the motel sign were bugging her optic nerves, even through the veil of her eyelids. She wanted to be alone, that was what she wanted, but she knew that wouldn't happen. Not for a long while. Patrick was too paranoid of something happening to her.

She counted her breaths. Her lungs felt like they had been taken out and tanned. Like they were no longer working and no longer alive. She could feel them inflating, but they felt tight, like there were tensor bandages wrapped around them, constricting just how much they could move. The little clusters of cells inside, the alveoli? Had they all shriveled up and died? They didn't seem to be pulling oxygen in anymore.. What had happened to all the oxygen?

Charlotte squeezed her eyes tighter. Fucking thoughts. Traitorous body. Traitorous mind.

"When I was a kid I used to like Lipton chicken noodle soup," Patrick said then, voice rich and warm and comfortable. Like he was telling a little child a story. Which, in a way, he was.

_"What!?"_

"I used to like Lipton chicken noodle soup. The kind that comes in the red box? The one you add hot water to? With the neon-yellow chicken broth? The tiny, straight noodles? They'd go even more yellow then the broth, real fluorescent yellow..." His voice was so lazy, so calm.

Charlotte wheezed out a breath. "So!?"

"If I was having a bad day, I'd put on some water, wait until the water was boiling, steaming... bubbling water, and then dump that little noodle packet in. Breathe in the warm steam, stand in front of the stove and breathe in the smell of cooking soup. Watch the noodles start to soften right before my eyes. Stand there, and you could watch this dry powder change in the hot water, the smell-"

"I know what you're doing," Charlotte said then, but her lungs did feel a bit looser. Patrick was silent for a good ten seconds before answering.

"You do?"

"You're trying to distract me. And the imagery you've chosen is obviously meant to be relaxing. Warm water? Chicken noodle soup? You're hardly being subtle."

Patrick turned his electric eyes to her and grinned, a full grin. Like one of the numbers she could remember him putting on so many long years ago. The corners of his eyes crinkling, laugh lines etching ever so deeper.

"Is it working?"

"It's running its course," she allowed. "The adrenaline." Still tight, her lungs, but not quite as tight. Chest aching, wanting to spasm. But the growing terror was gone. Mostly.

"I'll go for a run with you in a few hours. When it's light. If you still want to?"

Despite herself, the teenager yawned. Suddenly felt so incredibly tired. Damn it. Chicken noodle soup...

"Want to go and rejoin Lisbon?"

Charlotte nodded. Unclicked her seat belt (it had been on the entire attack) and pushed the door open. Shuffled out onto the pavement and slammed the door. Patrick was beside her instantly, quiet and smooth as a shadow. He didn't touch her, but she could feel him next to her, like a magnet. He walked her to the motel room.

Lisbon, for her part, had changed into the pyjamas she had purchased herself at the god-awful Walmart super center and was sitting on one of the beds. There were only two beds. Charlotte looked over at her father expectantly.

"I'm not going to sleep," Patrick said.

"Jane, you have to sleep," Lisbon began in what almost sounded like a worried tone but Jane just made a tsking noise. She stopped talking.

Hadn't they just had this conversation in the car?****** Déjà vu** hit Charlotte in the throat. Her thoughts began to whine, tinnitus.

"I'll sleep in the car tomorrow. You can drive, Lisbon. Deal?"

Lisbon stared at him for a moment. Finally nodded her head. Sighed loudly. Charlotte wasn't sure, but she thought Lisbon might have wanted to argue the sleeping arrangements and decided to let it drop. Charlotte tried to remember what her father was like back in the day- really like, and not what she imagined he had been like. Had he been stubborn? Yes. Charismatic? Yes, again. No doubt Lisbon knew better than to argue with him. Knew to pick her battles.

Charlotte glanced over the room now, taking in all the details. Old shag carpeting, peeling wall paper, prosaic little prints of clipper ships in pastel water colours. What a yawn fest. Lisbon had left her the bed closest to the washroom. Closest to the TV. The bags had been brought in from the car, everything but her backpack and some of the food. The teen went and found the bag of clothes Lisbon had told her were her's, grabbed the entire thing and marched to the washroom. Once inside, door locked, she opened the small window above the toilet. Pulled out the pot and the pipe and smoked a few quick tokes. Patrick would smell it, of course... but so what? Let him say something.

Then she was into the shower. She showered quickly, washing herself in what was almost a frenzy, the water pelting and hot and almost painful, steaming the bathroom mirror in seconds and causing the fan to cut on. She flossed in the shower, ran the toothbrush with aquafresh furiously over her teeth, spat. Spat again. Put down another line of toothpaste and began to clean her teeth again, scrubbing until the foam she spat out was pink. Then little splatters of red in the pink. Good enough.

She ran her right pointer finger over her teeth and tested them. Smiled a little when they squeaked. She was equally vicious with the shampoo, clawing the soap through her hair quickly, furiously, then repeating. Then repeating again. Five minutes after getting in the shower she was finished. 6 minutes after she'd turned on the faucet, she had dried and changed into her pyjamas. Lounge pants and a long sleeved, green t-shirt.

Charlotte walked back out, hair slightly more wavy than normal, and eased herself onto the bed Lisbon had left her. The pot was already hitting her and making the edges of her awareness a bit fuzzy. The girl got back up, grabbed the remote control off the cabinet the TV was resting on, and turned the television on. CNN was showing middle eastern bullshit. Israel and Syria and Russia, Oh my! Putin was pissed at Obama. What else was new? Putin was saying... Charlotte changed the channel. An old rerun of Saved By the Bell. The Big Bang Theory. The local news. Some melodramatic made-for-tv movie. She surfed through 10 more channels before stopping on a cartoon. Old one. She-ra. Charlotte stared at the cartoon, then grinned at it.

Then she began to giggle. This cartoon was inane. Time was really slow and bubbly now, time was warm. Could time be warm? She-rahhhh! Charlotte's eyes glazed over. On the television, a brightly coloured cartoon horse (wasn't its name Swift-wind? Something like that?) was carrying the yellow-haired She-rah back to her castle. The crystal castle. Exciting cartoon music. Charlotte giggled louder.

On her bed, Lisbon glanced over at Jane. He was sitting in the corner of the room, by the closed and locked door, on the only chair in the room and was watching his daughter with tired, patient eyes. Lisbon caught his eyes and he smiled at her, a perfunctory gesture of acknowledgment. Nodded at her, a subtle incline of the head. Charlotte giggled again at something on the television screen and chewed on her fingernails, and it was such a strange little giggle that Lisbon felt like she was in the room with a six year old, not a sixteen year old. Lisbon was also pretty sure the girl was high, but that was Jane's battle. Jane was just watching her, transfixed, the light from the television dancing over his tired features like pastel flames. As tired as he no doubt was, his eyes never lessened in intensity.

"Hey, Lisbon?" Charlotte half-hissed, half-whispered then. Lisbon glanced around.

"Yeah?"

"You ever watch this cartoon? She-raaaaah?"

Lisbon grinned at that, and nodded.

"Yes, actually- I used to watch this when I was little. I even had the lunch box-"

Charlotte had collapsed into the blanket stretched over her bed and laughed into the fabric. Lisbon threw an uneasy glance over at Jane. The smile that had been on his face had lessened a little. He looked almost sad. No, not sad. Accepting. Pensive.

When Charlotte lifted her face back up, her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were very, very shiny. She pointed a slender finger at the screen.

"What is this thing that looks like a colourful monkey mixed with a butterfly? With the little bird beak?"

"His name is Kowl," Lisbon said slowly, testing the waters. Charlotte stared at her, mouth twitching.

"He's named _Cow_?"

"Kowl," Lisbon repeated. "With an "el" at the end."

"Was..." Charlotte trailed. "Was your lunch bucket made of plastic?"

Lisbon nodded again.

"Was it pink plastic?"

"Um... I don't think so. I think it was blue," Lisbon informed the girl, her own mouth jerking up at the corners.

"Was that monkey-butterfly thing on your lunch box?"

"I don't really remember," Lisbon said gently, smiling in memory. She could suddenly smell crayola crayons and the smell of elementary school lunches (usually peanut butter and jelly with a banana or an orange, sometimes bologna with mustard and mayo. Always on white wonder bread. Sometime a fruit roll up or a baggie of Oreo cookies or a chocolate pudding. In the fall, spaghetti and meatballs in the little thermos. By winter of the first grade, Teresa Lisbon's She-ra lunch box had been covered with scratch and sniff stickers, puffy stickers of Garfield.

Funny how memories were linked like that.

"Was that horse with the wings on it?" Charlotte asked, rousing Lisbon from her trip down memory lane.

"Charlotte?" Jane said then, voice a bit louder than usual. Charlotte looked over at him lazily, more like a cat than a squirrel now. Lisbon was almost expecting her to yawn at him.

_"Hmmm?"_

"I think Lisbon is tired," Jane told her matter-of-factly.

"I want to know about her lunch box. From... from when did this cartoon come out? 1965?"

"Mid-eighties?" Lisbon said, ignoring the comment.

"I want to know about the mid-eighties lunch box," Charlotte informed her father, and amazingly, she said this straight faced. Then, she seemed to run the comment through her short term memory and lost it laughing again.

"I... I want to know about the Pegasus name... named... _swift-wind_."

"Why don't you talk about it tomorrow in the car?

Charlotte mumbled something into the blankets and finally stopped laughing. She looked back at the television with glassy eyes. Lisbon lay down on her own bed. Shut her eyes. Wondered what was going through Jane's mind at this moment.

Wondered what horrors Charlotte was suppressing while giggling away at retro cartoons at 2:30 in the morning the second night after escaping from the serial killer who had raised her.

* * *

End of Chapter, please review. Reviews= love.


	11. Chapter 11

**Title:** Charlotte's Web (Chapter Eleven) by Lexikal  
**Rating:** M for graphic violence and language  
**Fandom:** The Mentalist  
**Summary:** Patrick Jane has lived his life obsessed with the capture of Red John ever since finding his beloved wife and daughter slain by the maniac's hand. Now, 10 years to the day after that horrific night, a young woman appears in Patrick's life, someone who threatens to destroy everything his life has become in the interim... if not his sanity, itself.

* * *

"Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one." - George Orwell

"Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtaxed."- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Anything less than abject submission has to have some attack in it." - Frank Herbert

* * *

The man named Red John was excited. For the first period of time away from her home, they had stayed in a little room with a bathroom attached and the man named Red John had sat in a chair, in the dark. He was silent at first, watching her. She had asked to have the television on and he had said that would be okay. So she sat and watched the television, and sucked her thumb and tried to disappear inside her mind. As the hours stretched by, she thought of her mother again, of her lungs hanging out of her back and of the way her own arm ached in the cast where the bone had split through the flesh. The man named Red John had had a doctor friend of his set the arm, and stitch the ruined, broken skin. The man hadn't looked at her at all the entire time he'd worked on her arm, hadn't spoken to her once, had denied her eye contact. When he had been done with the arm (all of this had been done in the back of a special van, the inside of which looked like a hospital room or clinic room) he had given Red John a paper bag with pills inside and told Red John to give her a pill every 6 hours, with food and to phone if "she" spiked a fever or became delirious or if there were "complications". He'd also used the word "shock" a few times, throwing quick looks over at the child who had hours earlier been normal and sane.

"We'll soon break her of such pesky afflictions, won't we?" Red John had said, and looked over at the girl in shock, and smiled at her. Winked at her. She stared back at him, thumb in mouth. The doctor-man had stared at Red John, eyes narrowed.

"I am not sure it will be as easy as all of that, Roy," he said.

"Oh ye of little faith," Red John said back to him, and patted him lightly on the upper arm. "She'll come around. They always do."

"She's a child," the doctor-man said, putting more meaning than usual into the word "child".

"Even better," Red John said, and grinned at Charlotte again. "She'll be perfect. Just perfect. Can't you just see it? How she'll blossom? How she'll adapt? All the best come from tragedy."

The doctor-man glanced over at her then. His eyes were dark and impersonal and scanned over her, like a machine. He sighed.

"Have you no vision?" Red John prompted. "None at all?"

"This little stunt of yours is tactically dangerous. And this _child_. If she doesn't work out? You can hardly drop her off in the system and hope she is lost in paperwork and incompetent foster homes. If she fails to live up to your expectations-"

"She won't," Red John said back, quickly, almost angry.

"But if she does?" The doctor-man was adamant and persistent.

"There are painless ways of putting failures out of their misery," Red John said. His eyes were softer now, smudged eyes, like an impressionist painting.

But Charlotte was just staring at him, sucking her thumb and riding on fuzzy waves of painkillers. She had no idea what the two of them were talking about, only that the Red John man was excited about her and that the doctor-man didn't particularly like her and that her arm hurt and that her mother was dead with her lungs pulled out and tied up to the ceiling with fishing line and that her Daddy was dead or gone or _somewhere else_, and she wanted to see him. She wanted to see him so badly it made her stomach hurt, made her lungs and the back of her nose burn. So badly she had cried for a long, long time. And then stopped crying, because her body had run out of tears.

Sometime later the man named Red John approached her. He had disappeared for a little while and come back with a Happy Meal from McDonald's. Mommy hated McDonald's, but Daddy had taken her, always grinning and saying things like "we'll run off that cheeseburger, won't we, Charlie?" And now Red John had brought her a Happy Meal. Just like Daddy.

"For you," he said, and put it down on the little rug she was sitting cross-legged on in front of the television. She opened it up mechanically. She was hungry. Inside was a cheeseburger and fries. Red John had gotten her a Sprite. The toy had been a little doll, unremarkable, boring. She ignored it, and turned back to the television, the taste of processed cheese in her molars, the too-salty bits of potato that were the fries. And a little bit after that, she threw up the happy meal, threw it up all over the floor and down the front of her shirt and made a low, moaning noise of shame and surprise. Red John cleaned up the mess and said something about fast food not being suited to his palate, either. And her mind disappeared back into the television, where is stayed until she fell asleep into troubled, bizarre sleep. When she woke up, nothing was real anymore. Everything had turned into a dream.

And it stayed that way.

* * *

Jane watched Charlotte sleep. It was 5 a.m. and his own body needed rest, but he didn't dare fall asleep, not yet. He'd sleep on the road. He could understand Charlotte's pervasive fear. He felt it, too. The fear that Red John might arrive, might do something horrible. When he'd thought his wife and daughter had both been dead, Jane hadn't really cared, because if Red John killed him? It really wouldn't matter. Then, over time, as his relationship with Lisbon developed and deepened and grew, he'd developed a slight fear (never anything he would voice aloud, but slowly a fear developed that Red John might harm Lisbon, might kill her or do something terrible again). Now that slight fear was growing. Charlotte was back, and there was a lot at risk. Jane was, frankly, terrified of sleeping. Terrified of the possibilities his mind kept coming up with for him. Of waking up to find Lisbon dead or Charlotte dead, or Charlotte gone or... horror shows ran through his mind.

Was that what Charlotte had lived with every day for the last ten years? Her formative years, all filled with paranoia and fear and panic and an almost suffocating feeling of never-ending dread. A few days feeling this and Jane felt breathless, trapped and a bit crazed. How had Charlotte coped?

Her brow was wrinkled in her sleep. Then her leg jerked and kicked, a nocturnal spasm. Jane got up, the small lamp on the desk near his chair the only source of illumination in the room, and went to his child. He stood over her. She was mumbling something.

Jane couldn't quite make it out. So he bent closer, fully aware that if Charlotte woke up she might be startled to find him so close to her. Charlotte was understandably jumpy. But his desire to know what she was saying was even stronger.

Instantly, his brain put the syllables together. She was asking for her Daddy. In her sleep, she was reliving the first days after she had become Red John's victim, of her low moan of "want him" was any indication.

"I'm here, Charlotte," Jane said then, softly, hoping his voice and his words would reach her in her dream and comfort her. Soothe her. The look of fear on her face edged itself deeper, though.

"won'trunaway," Charlotte said. _I won't run away._ All one word. Jane could only imagine what that comment pertained to. He stared at her, haunted in her sleep. How many nights had she relived this experience? What was she reliving, exactly? He wanted to know everything. He wanted to know everything she had been forced to experience, and he wanted to find Red John, and he wanted to gut the bastard like a fish. Jane had always carried a deep rage for Red John, an obsessive desire for wrath, but somehow, what the killer had down to Charlotte by keeping her alive was almost worse than the vicious lie that had been Jane's reality for ten years. He had put his child through Hell. There could be no sugar-coating it.

"I am not worried about you running away. You're free now. You're safe," Jane murmured, voice barely above a whisper. That seemed to hit the right button because her features evened out a little bit. Not much, but a little bit.

Jane nodded down at his child.

"That's right. Relax, Charlotte. Relax. You're safe now. You're going to be okay."

The subconscious mind was an incredibly powerful thing. Jane knew it. He had grown up exploiting the subconcious mechanisms of the masses, learning to exploit their weaknesses for profit. Then he had learned to profile based on his understanding of subconcious processes. Then he had put his family in danger by "helping" the police with a vicious, sadistic serial murderer. And Red John had come out of the woodwork. Red John, too, knew the power of the subconscious and he had used Jane's own weapons against him. To torture Charlotte.

It was the worst, sickest kind of payback.

"You're safe, Charlotte. I am here. I am not dead. You came back," he edged his voice into a good hypnotist's voice. "You are so strong. You are so brave. You're back home, now, and I am proud of you. I won't let anybody hurt you."

Charlotte's features were placid again, nearly. Jane ached to reach out and touch her forehead, kiss her head, or her cheek. But he didn't quite dare. Not yet. If she woke up and pulled back, got scared, felt threatened by his concern... it could take a long time to regain her trust. She needed her space. That much was clear, but he still wanted to touch her. She didn't quite seem real to him. She still seemed unnatural, impossible, not quite there. A miracle, even.

Two days earlier, Patrick Jane would have told anyone who bothered to ask that he was an atheist. Now? Now he didn't know what to think. Even stranger, he knew his sudden spiritual epiphany was illogical, but it didn't make the sensation of gratitude and of communion with "something higher", any less profound.

Eyes burning with conflicting emotions, Jane bit his lip as he looked down at Charlotte's sleeping face. Jane sighed. Blinked a few times. A small sheen of tears appeared over his eyes, nothing more than a lachrymose glazing effect.

"Thank you for coming back," he told his child softly.

He stood watching her for another handful of seconds and was about to go back to his chair to resume his watch, when Charlotte shifted in her sleep and kicked her covers off and onto the motel room floor.

"Welcome," she murmured, before stuffing her thumb into her mouth. She was still fast asleep, voice froggy with sleep. Despite himself and the gravity of the situation, Jane's face split into a delighted grin.

* * *

**Friday, November 2, 2013 6:35 a.m. P.S.T.**

He wasn't aware of falling asleep, but the hypomanic susurrus that was early morning cartoons gradually got through to the seamless gray fog of almost-sleep he'd been resting in and he slit his eyes open. Charlotte, all 16 years of her, was sitting cross legged on top of her bed's mattress with a bowl of Kraft easy mac and one of the ubiquitous strawberry pop tarts she seemed to regard as essential to metabolic functioning. She had a little styrofoam cup of what looked like instant coffee, too, on the little table between her and Lisbon's bed. Jane blinked blearily and was instantly awake.

"Morning," Charlotte said, and nodded in her father's direction.

"Lisbon?" Jane inquired immediately and Charlotte jerked her thumb over her shoulder towards the bathroom. Sure enough, Jane could make out the sound of the shower spray.

"She said I should let you sleep," Charlotte said .

"Did you want to wake me up?" Jane inquired. Charlotte shrugged.

"Not really. I sort of wanted to watch TV with you..."

"You can always wake me up if you need me, Charlotte," Jane said, voice as serious as it ever got. Charlotte quickly glanced over at her father, then back at the TV. She nodded, feigned indifference.

"Yeah, okay. That's nice of you. Thanks."

"You been up long?" Jane inquired, stretching a bit in his suit, yawning despite himself. Charlotte shrugged, which told Jane absolutely nothing. In response, she looked at him and plastered a grin on her face.

"I love this show," she told Jane, and stuffed a forkful of macaroni and cheese into her mouth. How had he not heard her plug in the kettle or use the microwave in the little kitchenette? Weird. As if reading his mind, Charlotte shrugged blandly.

"You were tired. It happens to the best of us."

"Thank you," Jane said, and rubbed at his eyes.

"You know this show?" Charlotte mumbled, between bites of her breakfast.

"I don't think so. What is it?"

"Annoying Orange," Charlotte said. She took a bite of her pop tart now. Reached over and grabbed up the styrofoam cup of instant coffee and took a gulp. Put it back without looking. Jane watched her. Every movement. Everything.

"Annoying orange?" Jane repeated. He wanted to know everything he possibly could about his child. About Red John, too, but anything Charlotte would tell him about herself, more than anything, he wanted to hear.

"That's right. The main character is an orange. Who also happens to be annoying."

Jane wasn't sure what to say to that. So he nodded. Grinned. Charlotte's love of bright colours, cartoons, the inane and the magical made a tragic sort of sense. The bright, the loud and the childish were all the antitheses of Red John's personality, Red John who was dark, cultured, distinguished and perverse. Jane smiled at his daughter, happy she had found small little ways to maintain her sense of safety and sanity in Red John's violently myopic world.

"Do you watch any cartoons at all?" Charlotte questioned when the commercials came on.

"I haven't really been much of a cartoon watcher as of late," Jane admitted.

"Hmmm. Pity. Life can be awfully dark without a bit of colour," Charlotte said, confirming Jane's inference. She pointed at a commercial that had just, that second, come on.

"I want that," she told her father, eyes glued to the screen, and in that moment sounded like a much younger child. But to Jane, her voice was a gift. Every word, every syllable, every peculiar sentence was a gift. He knew he was smiling at her a lot, and he couldn't help it. She didn't seem to mind, either. Charlotte, he knew, lived in her own world. It was how she had survived.

"Oh?" Jane said, and turned his attention to the commercial. A teenage boy dressed in orange was eating a cereal called "Reese's Puffs" while a frenetic voice rapped on in the background.

"I have been thinking about branching out my breakfast food options as of late," Charlotte said, no trace of sarcasm or irony in her voice. Jane nodded. Grinned. He couldn't help grinning. He'd been grinning at his child so much that the muscles in his cheeks were starting to ache, and he still couldn't stop.

The shower shut off then. Charlotte, without looking away from the television asked, then: "Do we have to get back on the road immediately, or can we watch cartoons for a bit first?"

We, not I. She had included him. Possibly, she had also included Lisbon.

"We can watch cartoons for a little while," Jane said and Charlotte nodded and grinned back, her eyes flickering over to him and back to the screen.

"You think Lisbon will watch cartoons with me?" She took another bite of mac and cheese.

"I bet she will," Jane said amiably. He already knew Lisbon liked Charlotte. Was a little uneasy around her, wasn't sure how to act, but Lisbon liked the tenacious little personality that shone forth despite all the crap Charlie had no doubt survived. He'd caught Lisbon grinning at Charlotte's comments, comments he, himself, had grinned like an idiot at. Charlotte, of course, had seemed unaware of their facial expressions, or if she was aware, she didn't always reciprocate the grins. Or the nods. Or the sighs. Jane knew that was a bit odd, but Charlotte would have been even odder if she had behaved normally.

"That can hardly taste good," Jane said, trying to strike up a conversation, nodding his head in the direction of Charlotte's breakfast.

"Hmm. What?"

"Your macaroni and cheese mixed with pop tart. That doesn't look that appetizing."

"You just don't understand my advanced palate," Charlotte said tolerantly, and this time she made eye contact and jerked the corners of her mouth up at Jane to let him know she was joking. Or at least good-naturedly poking fun at herself.

"That must be it," Jane allowed, delighted.

* * *

They watched cartoons for three hours, Charlotte still in her pajamas, drinking non-stop instant coffee from styrofoam cups. She had a habit of ripping the styrofoam to shreds and leaving bits and pieces of it all over the top of her bed, then getting another cup. To Jane, it looked like a tic or compulsive behaviour that she had adopted as a response to extreme, intolerable, stress. Even Lisbon had noticed, and silently raised her eyebrows at Jane, who only shrugged back and shook his head as a silent warning to her not to mention it. Lisbon lay on her bed, eyes glued to retro cartoons except for the odd comment to Charlotte. Jane's eyes moved from the television, then to Charlotte, then to Lisbon and back again. They could have been any family in the world, and he was delighted that Charlotte was trying to include Lisbon in her world, even if her walls were still up and guarded.

Or maybe Charlotte was indiscriminately affectionate with everyone? It was hard to tell. Jane knew it would be silly to expect his daughter to have come through her childhood without massive problems, and yet, he couldn't help but hope that Charlie's apparent affection for Lisbon was for Lisbon and not some amicable default setting. He knew that that was also a silly and somewhat selfish desire at this point in Charlotte's life, but he wished for it anyway.

The channel Charlotte had tuned into featured non-stop retro cartoons from the 70s and the 80s punctuated by commercials for modern toys and sugary breakfast cereals. Not only did Charlotte seem fond of these shows, but Lisbon was grinning at the screen and to his delight Jane realized that Lisbon was truly letting her guard down. Having fun, even. A cartoon based on the movie Beetlejuice was now on the television, and when Lisbon heard the theme music she had announced, excitedly: "I used to love this show!"

Jane grinned at her. Charlotte nodded without looking over.

"Weren't you an adult when this came out?" Jane teased her and Lisbon shot him one of her patented annoyed looks.

"Who cares if she was an adult," Charlotte said, and took another sip of coffee. "It's an awesome show."

"I used to like Lydia," Lisbon said to Charlotte, and Charlotte nodded again.

"She's a bit emo for me, but I like how Beetlejuice has evened out her temperment," Charlotte mused. She took another sip of coffee, then ripped a piece of the lip off the cup out and tossed it on the bed. Her bed was now covered with little bits of coffee-stained styrofoam. A gift for the hotel maid, perhaps?

"Lydia is emo?" Lisbon questioned, and Jane could see what Lisbon would have been like as a teenager. Fiery, attentive, loyal. He was having fun watching the pair of them interact.

"Of course Lydia is emo," Charlotte said, eyes still on the screen. "All the 'my life is one big dark room' shit? That's pretty emo."

"I thought Lydia was a goth," Lisbon admitted. On the TV screen the cartoon Lydia was chanting. "_Though I know I should be wary, still I venture someplace scary, ghostly haunting I turn loose, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!_"

Jane could see Charlotte's mouth silently moving as she recited the chant. So. She had seen this show a few times, then.

"Will you ladies be okay on your own if I go and get a shower?" Jane said, then, giving Lisbon a meaningful look. Lisbon nodded. Charlotte waved him away with her hand, while at the same time shushing him. He grinned over at Lisbon and stepped into the bathroom. He was glad Charlotte was relaxing (or appeared to be relaxing) but he knew they would have to get moving again soon. He had no doubt the FBI would be looking for them and staying anywhere for too long made Jane feel anxious and exposed. Into the bathroom he took the brown hair dye Lisbon had picked up for him, a piar of the jeans she had purchased him and a navy t-shirt. Jane knew that most people were visually superficial. They didn't really pay attention, and if someone changed their dress style and hair colour they could more or less disappear off the radar. It was a human weakness that Jane knew would now serve them all well. He had no doubt that if he were to put on a baseball cap and a pair of shades even Rigsby and Cho would be forced to do a double take. He knew Lisbon would want to know what the long-term plan here, was. He wasn't quite sure, because he couldn't yet be absolutely certain of how Red John would respond or how the FBI or CBI would respond. He had no doubt that they would respond, however, that even know Red John was planning and plotting. Jane could feel Red John's anger and passion, like a pulse in the air and he tried to push away the queasy,-sick feeling he got when he thought of what Red John might do to them if they weren't all exceedingly careful. Once again, the thought occurred to him that this level of fear was normal to Charlotte and he felt a pang of sadness for her.

He also knew he would have to get as much information about Red John from Charlotte as possible. And draw Red John out into the open, somehow.

* * *

It was 12 minutes past 10 when Jane got out of the shower. He came out wearing the jeans and t-shirt and Lisbon's eyebrows raised. Lisbon had a "we need to talk" expression on her face which Jane caught immediately.

"I think you should tell him," Lisbon said to Charlotte. Charlotte sighed and stared straight ahead at the TV.

"Tell me what?" Jane said, smiling, mildly surprised that Charlotte hadn't even looked up. Lisbon was sending him meaningful facial expressions and Jane nodded slightly, to show her he got her message.

"He's a die-hard atheist. He wouldn't be interested."

"I might be interested," Jane said, towel drying his hair.

"You wouldn't be," Charlotte informed him offhandedly.

"You told Lisbon," Jane pointed out. Finished with the towel he took it back to the bathroom, hung it up on the metal pole attached to the wall. It was a motel towel and would be washed, anyway, but doing so was a tactic made to put Charlotte at ease, buy her a few seconds to think over Lisbon's proposal so she didn't feel so pressured.

"Lisbon believes in God," Charlotte said, when Jane re-entered the room. "And your hair looked better when you were a blonde."

"Thank you," Jane said, grinning. "You haven't taken your eyes off the television-"

"I can see your reflection on the TV screen," Charlotte informed him, magnanimously, and finally looked over. "Yep. Better as a blonde."

"But not too bad?" Jane said. Charlotte grinned back and shook her head.

"You'll do."

"So... what won't I be interested in?"

Charlotte glanced over at Lisbon. Lisbon gave the teen a pleading look and nodded her head slightly. Charlotte sighed and looked irritated. Finally relented.

"I've seen God, and Red John gets his power from the devil," she said simply, like she was discussing the weather.

That stopped Jane in his tracks. He knew his daughter wasn't joking, but he had no idea how to respond to such a comment without more information.

"Red John gets his power from the devil?" Jane prodded gently, trying not to sound sarcastic or disbelieve, only neutral.

"Of course. Where do you think he got it?"

"I... I just thought he was a very powerful man. Very skilled at manipulating people, and at winning their trust."

This got a slight giggle from Charlotte, which to Jane's mind was very chilling. Now that he was looking more carefully at Lisbon, he could see that she was a bit pale. What exactly had Charlotte said to her?

"How do you know he gets his power from the devil?" Jane said, and Charlotte rolled her eyes.

"I'm not crazy, you know," Charlotte informed him, but her eyes were still on the TV screen. Jane schooled is expression into neutral acceptance, and went to paw through the junk Lisbon had purchased the day before for the aftershave.

"I don't think you're crazy," he said softly. He wanted his child to believe that. Confused? Absolutely. Crazy? No.

"Well then, don't use that tone of voice head-shrinkers use on psych patients when they think they are three seconds from smearing shit on the walls."

Ordinarily, Jane might have laughed at that comment, but he could sense Charlotte was touchy about this subject.

"I'm sorry if that's what I sound like."

"Yes, well... okay."

"So... what can you tell me about Red John? And... the devil? God?" Jane really, really had to hear this.

"Red John is an occultist. All the most powerful men in the world are. This world is run by Luciferians. The popes in Rome? All Luciferians."

Jane nodded, blinked. Kept his expression the same. If this was going where he thought it might be going, he could already piece together why Lisbon was pale and shaken up.

"Red John is just one of a whole network of very powerful men. They rule the world. There are like... 3 or 4 thousand of them, the highest ranking ones, and they are all occultists. They get their power from the dark arts, and Red John is a member. That's where he gets his power from. He is one of them. That is why he has people in high-up places, moles in the FBI, all of it. Because he is in their little club. Illuminati, Free Masons, whatever... all of them. I don't know what to call them exactly, they lie about everything and I am not a member. They kill people. In their cults."

Jane just nodded. Lisbon's eyes were huge and Jane could see that her pupils were dilated with fear. Whatever Charlotte had said had shaken Lisbon up enough to cause a physiological fear response. Shit.

"They kill people in their cults?"

"Sure," Charlotte said easily. She had another cup of coffee in her tiny hands. The entire bedspread was littered with white styrofoam. She was also obviously wired on the stuff.

"Why... why do they kill people?"

Charlotte turned her attention away from whatever cartoon it was she was watching (Jane had no idea what it was) and gave him a bored look.

"Why the fuck do you think?"

"I really don't know," Jane said.

"It's how they get their rocks off. Sick, power game shit. That's part of it. And also, they think that it pleases Lucifer, doing fucked up shit and ensures their continued monetary and political success. Which, of course, it does. Look at the state of the world."

Jane considered his daughter. How brainwashed was she? He had a sinking feeling her view of reality was only going to get... worse. The more she opened up.

"Why did you tell Lisbon this?"

"I don't know," Charlotte admitted, sounding a bit annoyed. "It just came out."

"Do you think, maybe... you wanted Lisbon to compel you to tell me this?"

"Stop with the fucking psychoanalysis, Patrick. It's not cute."

"Okay," Jane said. "Then why?"

"I don't know. But I knew she would believe it. And I know why she wanted me to tell you."

"Why?" Jane said softly. He had the aftershave but didn't dare go back to the bathroom, not right now. He didn't want to break whatever rapport he'd developed, whatever pressured need was currently driving Charlotte to share this information.

"She wants you to try and make it, explain everything, so it looks crazy and so she can go back to feeling safe again. But you won't be able to do that, because the world is not safe. Not in any way. There is no safety. Anywhere. Only chaos. And then you die."

"Okay," Jane said. The rage he had felt off and on (but mostly on) for Red John for the last decade had hit a new high, and he didn't quite trust himself to say anything more than okay. Then he forced himself to carry this conversation forward.

"Red John... um... you said you saw God?"

This got a cynical laugh from Charlotte. "Yeah, but you don't have to sound so scared of me. I am not going to wig out and throw my shit at you or anything."

"How do you know it was God you were seeing?" Jane said. He hadn't yet heard her story, of course, wasn't sure where to step now.

"If you have to ask that question, you're going about it all wrong."

Jane just stared. Licked his lips. Was about to speak when Charlotte continued.

"When you see God, you fucking know it's God. You just do."

"Okay."

"I saw God in a little town called Hermosillo. Well, actually in a dessert outside Hermosillo. Whatever. A few days after I first saw the crazy chicken man."

"Crazy chicken man?" Jane prodded. Charlotte was still pretending to watch the cartoon, but he knew she was focused entirely on what she was telling him. She just couldn't bare to meet his eyes, lest she see disapproval or fear in them.

"Yes, _el hombre del pollo loco_," Charlotte said tiredly. "That is what everybody called him. The crazy chicken man. Because he was fucking nuts and because he was always surrounded by chickens. But Red John called him padre, father."

"Red John knew this man?"

"Obviously Red John knew him if he called him father, right?" Charlotte said. Ripped a new chunk of styrofoam out of her newest cup of instant coffee.

"In Hermosillo?"

"Yes," Charlotte said. "He's still there, I bet. He'll help us."

"He will?" Jane said. For the first time he felt like he had something here to cling to, some direction.

"Sure. The crazy chicken man fucking hates Red John. He'll help us as much as he can."

Jane nodded. He had a million questions to ask. Wasn't sure what to ask first.

"The crazy chicken man is a shaman, something like that. A priest maybe, a witch-doctor type. I was young, so I am not really sure. Red John has some power over him, I am not sure how, but he does. So the crazy chicken man, he puts curses on people Red John can't get to?"

"Can't get to?" Jane repeated, feeling a bit queasy.

"Sure. There are people Red John can't always get to. Higher up on the pyramid then he is, or people trying to fight people like Red John. They exist too. For every force in the universe, there is an equal and opposite force that exists. It's like a rule of physics, but it also applies to good and evil, too. I don't know any of their names, not anymore, so don't even ask. But Red John can't always get to them to kill them, so he has the crazy chicken man kill them from afar, with curses and whatnot."

"H-how... how do you know this works?"

"I saw what happened to one of them. Red John took me to see a curse in action. They're real."

"What did you see?" Jane said, and Lisbon was amazed by how steady his voice was, how steady his gaze was.

"First, the crazy chicken man told Red John where this guy was. He was a senator from some state that started with a C, I think, and he had gone underground. He wanted to pass some bill or something and was getting on people's nerves and made some enemies and Red John hated him. Not sure why, specifically. Maybe it doesn't even matter why. Maybe it was just a challenge. So Red John found out exactly where the guy was staying. Crazy chicken man, he knew exactly where he'd be. Not the address, but he described everything so well that Red John figured it out. Then we had to go to do the curse, because we had to be there for part of it. And I saw what happened to him."

"What happened to him?" Jane asked gently, not sure if he wanted to hear this, but knowing he absolutely had to.

"The man began to choke on his own blood. Red John and me... we drank this potion. For power or something. Red John wanted me to see. Anyway, we put these symbols on the floor. In blood. My blood, and Red John's blood. And the crazy chicken man had already killed two chickens and a goat back in Hermosillo, too. As sacrifices, you see. So we added their blood to the symbols too. Then waited for this senator to come home. He didn't see Red John right away. He went into his kitchen and was making a bologna sandwich when Red John started reciting poetry and he freaked and dropped the jar of mayonnaise on the floor and it broke. I remember that clearly. Also that he had hardwood floors in the kitchen and that he stepped on the glass and it cut his foot and the blood that came out of his foot, at that time, was normal blood colour. Normal red."

Jane couldn't take his eyes off his daughter now. She couldn't take her eyes off the television.

"What happened then?"

"He heard Red John and then he saw him in the living room, and he ran towards the stairs, going up stars, and Red John held up his right hand and snapped his fingers and the man collapsed on the ground like someone had cut the tendons in his ankles, which is probably what happened, because the backs of his feet, his heels, they were bleeding black blood all over the floor."

Charlotte ripped another chunk of the styrofoam out of the cup and threw it on the bed.

Jane blinked, hard. No wonder Lisbon was so pale. She believed in this sort of crap. And so did Charlotte, obviously.

"Charlotte, what happened then?"

"Red John dragged the senator-dude into the living room and laid him over top of the symbols we had made. And the man started crying, like a little kid. His face went bright red, Patrick, and he looked so scared..." Charlotte trailed, and a slackness came over her face. Jane saw her blink, heavily, as if trying to clear away the memory.

"Then Red John repeated a few words. Not Latin. I don't know what language. Not Spanish either. Maybe Afrikaans or something, who the fuck knows. I don't know. The man started looking like he was choking, his face went dark purple and then he began to scream. Fingers came out of him, all through his whole body. Long fingers, dirty fingers with very long nails, and then hands, and then arms. They ripped him completely apart. He fell apart on the floor. There was blood everywhere. And then little millipedes and bugs came out of what was left of him. The blood was dark black, not like normal blood. And then Red John spit on him. And then we left. His head looked like crumpled up paper." Charlotte gave an almost hysterical little laugh at this and from the corner of his eye, Jane saw Lisbon visibly flinch.

Charlotte finally looked over at her father. She saw the horror in his eyes, and she nodded.

"That's right. That's _right_, Patrick. You'll never be able to kill him. Not ever. For he doesn't bleed like a normal man and he doesn't eat with normal men."

Jane finally risked a glance over at Lisbon. She was even paler now.

"This is what you told Lisbon?"

"Yes. But more complete this time. So I don't have to tell it again after this."

"Thank you," Jane said solemnly. He didn't know what else to say.

"You wanted to know about me seeing God?"

Jane just nodded.

"A few days after that, I was out in the dessert. Not sure how I got there. I think maybe I had tried to run away from Red John, only we had been back in California to kill this senator, and I ended up outside Hermosillo. Anyway, I was in the dessert and I saw a snake. And I knew it was the devil, so I kept running. And then later, in the sky, I saw God. He was fire and light, like the northern lights, but in the middle of the day, and He said to me that eventually Red John would be cast out of the world and I was to bear witness to his downfall. And then He was gone. There was a burst of lightning then and then thunder. And then in the distance I saw the crazy chicken man. He looked beaten up, both of his eyes were black and his lip was bleeding and his clothes were all dirty and torn up. He took me back to the city and gave me water and a candy they sell in Hermosillo called banderitas. Banderitas means little flags, because the candy comes in the shape of little flags. But I knew the crazy chicken man was trying to send me a message with that candy, because in Mexico, or at least in Hermosillo, they celebrate something called _La Preciosa Sangre,_ which means 'his precious blood'. It is a celebration of the blood Jesus shed on the cross. Anyway, they wave little flags around when they celebrate that day, and the candy the crazy chicken man gave me was also called banderitas, because it is shaped like little flags, like I already said. I told Lisbon all about that candy. Very good. She says she would like to try it, didn't you, Lisbon?"

Charlotte now looked away from the TV, looked at Lisbon. Lisbon nodded. Grinned, but her skin was still pale. For some reason, Jane had a sudden mental image of Lisbon's face as a grinning skull and his arms broke out in gooseflesh. He rubbed at his arms, shivered.

"You'll like them," Charlotte assured her and turned back to the TV once more.

"Okay. About the candies. They were called banderitas, and I knew the crazy chicken man was referring to the precious blood celebration. You see the connection, right Patrick? I know you do. He was trying to tell me he knew I had seen God in the dessert. The candies themselves are coconut, with sugar and maybe egg whites as a binder, and food colouring. In little flag shapes. Very good. After I ate them all, I saw Red John was waiting for me. And that was that. Red John wasn't even angry. He didn't say anything, so I think maybe he was scared of me. For having seen God. We didn't go back to Hermosillo for two years after that, because I think that's how shaken up Red John was about God revealing Himself to me."

Jane nodded dully.

"How old were you when this happened?" His words were soft and measured.

"Eight maybe? Maybe nine? Eight or nine. Something like that."

Jane nodded again. Looked over at Lisbon and tried to give her a reassuring smile. Red John had drugged his child, brainwashed her, maybe given her hallucinogens. And scared the fucking daylights out of her. Quite possibly scared the sanity out of her. How could anyone be sane after seeing what Charlotte had just described, what she honestly believe to be real? Sanity could not exist for long in such a reality.

Red John was going to die for this. There was no question about it. Red John would die. Slowly, if possible. He would. Jane would see to it. He would do it for Charlotte. He would do it for his child, to not only remove the threat of the monster, but to show her that the monster itself was flesh and blood like everybody else. He'd win back that chunk of her sanity, if at all possible.

However, at the very base of his being, Patrick Jane was scared. Charlotte's words had freaked him out. But he would not acknowledge that. He could not acknowledge that.

"Anyways, we should go to Hermosillo, to see the crazy chicken man. He'll know where Red John is, at least. So we should go there."

Jane nodded. Blinked. Hard. He needed to get away from Charlotte for a while, get away and think. He tried on another shaky smile for Lisbon, but she saw through it. Charlotte tore another chunk of styrofoam out of the cup, threw it on the bed, then drained the rest of the coffee and threw the cup on the bed.

"Southpark comes on channel 53 in 8 minutes," she told her father. Jane just nodded at her. If Charlotte wanted to watch Southpark, by all means they would watch Southpark. Of course they would.

"Think we can get some of those banderitas candies when we get to Mexico?"

Jane just nodded again. He was going to go pay the motel manager for another day and then he was going to watch television with his child. Check out time was 11:30 a.m., and Jane knew there was no chance of them getting out by then, not without being rushed.

.He was not going to rush Charlotte. No. He would not do that.

* * *

End of Chapter, please review.


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